This study investigated whether secondary school students of varied backgrounds, enrolled at a private school developed for the purpose of integrating computers into all aspects of the curriculum and cultivating self-motivated learners, impose their existing motivational sets on computer programming, and whether instructional settings and practices change motivational orientations over time. Using Dweck's construct of the achievement motivational process, entity and incremental students were identified, and the different approaches of the two groups to LOGO programming assignments were examined. Entity children, who made up the majority of the students, believe that intelligence is a stable, global trait judgeable by other people and that effort is risky because it might reveal low intelligence; they preferred tasks which maximized looking smart or avoiding failure. Low-confidence entity students were confused and resorted to unconstructive problem-solving behavior. For their population, the LOGO programming language could not foster self-regulatory behavior. The one incremental student, who viewed intelligence as skills expandable through one's own efforts, appeared comfortable and confident in the LOGO learning environment. Despite the school's philosophy, its LOGO programming orientation, and teachers' incremental beliefs, entity learners did not become incremental learners over time. Exposure to LOGO through an inductive teaching method was inappropriate to these students' motivational orientations. A 23-item reference list is provided. (MBR)