This is a figure from Ames' article on classroom goals and structure that would support motivation for mastery. A student's learning environment has been shown to influence how they learn. So in her article Ames relates the classroom learning environment to the goal theory and sets up guidelines that would make a class encouraging of mastery achievement in students. Ames focuses on three main aspects of the classroom that can be manipulated to support mastery learning. They are task, evaluation/recognition and authority.

Task.

Tasks are a crucial part of the classroom that influences student's perceptions and how they approach the task at hand. When faced with a task, students make judgments on their own abilities and decide the amount of effort they will put into an activity. In order to make tasks geared towards a mastery orientation, students must perceive meaning for engaging in the activity and they must be interested in the task. Tasks that are full of variety and diversity, instead of rote and repetitive activities, will help to spark an interest in students. Tasks should also be short-term goals to enable students to accomplish the task with reasonable effort and keep their interest.

Evaluation/ Recognition.

Evaluation can positively or negatively affect a student's motivation dependent upon its form. To have students become mastery oriented they must focus on their individual progress, not be socially compared to others in the class. Grades should not be made public, but instead kept private between teacher and student. Another important aspect in evaluation is to recognize a student's effort opposed to just looking at how many questions they answered correctly. A student's effort and the grade they receive from putting forth this effort will affect their motivation in the future.

Authority.

Teachers should establish themselves as authority figures, but also allow students to have a part in their learning processes by giving them a voice. To enhance student motivation a teacher should let their student chose their learning method, set priorities in task completion and give them some responsibility. Students will be more motivated to learn if they feel they have a part in the process, opposed to a teacher always telling them exactly what to do and how to do it. Meaningful learning will take place when it is self motivated by the student and facilitated by the teacher.