Background: Observation Studies, Unmeasured Confounding, and Sensitivity Analysis: An important part of educational research is identifying important, potentially causal, factors that influence children's learning from observational studies. However, it is well-known that discovering such factors from observational studies can be biased due to…

According to attribution theory, people seek to make sense of their environment through ascribing causality to their behavior and the behavior of others and these attributions impact future behavior (Jones et al., 1972). In essence, people seek to answer and understand why. This fundamental concept associated with attribution theory is important…

This study uses a randomized design to assess the impact of the Balanced Leadership program on principal leadership, instructional climate, principal efficacy, staff turnover, and student achievement in a sample of rural northern Michigan schools. Participating principals report feeling more efficacious, using more effective leadership practices,…

Education policy-makers and practitioners want to know which policies and practices can best achieve their goals. But research that can inform evidence-based policy often requires complex methods to distinguish causation from accidental association. Avoiding econometric jargon and technical detail, this paper explains the main idea and intuition…

Little is known about the influence of language background in problem-based learning (PBL) tutorial groups on group processes and students' academic achievement. This study investigated the relationship between language background, secondary school score, tutorial group processes, and students' academic achievement in PBL. A validated tutorial…

Examines student motivation and achievement in relation to Attribution Theory. Asked public school students to indicate causes they attributed to success or failure in music. Shows that students place more importance on ability and effort as causal attributions. Grade, school level, and school system have significant effects on student response.…

This study examines the effectiveness of multiple methods of soliciting attributions. The Attributional Style Questionnaire, specific attributions, and causal dimensions are used to predict the grades and feelings of frustration of college algebra students. The results show that, contrary to current theoretical work, both specific attributions and…

The relationship between academic self-concept and achievement was examined longitudinally for 46 children at ages 8 and 10. A bidirectional relationship operated between self-concept and achievement. Success attributions to ability were positively related to self-concept and achievement but were not a direct predictor of achievement. (SLD)

Critical incident methodology was used to study the attributional beliefs of 211 junior high school students in 4 subject areas. Results highlight the context-specific nature of causal beliefs and their linkages to reported classroom achievement. External attributions were more likely to generalize across subject areas. (SLD)

This study investigated gender differences in causal attributions and emotions to success and failure. A literature review on gender differences in causal attributions revealed inconsistencies. For the present study, college students (N=247) filled out questionnaires and were also asked to imagine varying degrees of success in college courses. The…

The frequency of judgment effect is a special case of Response Mode effect in human covariation and causal learning. Judgment adjustment -to [Delta]P-, depends on the trial type preceding that judgment, but that effect is restricted to situations in which participants are asked to make their judgments with a high frequency. Two experiments further…

The longitudinal changes in the causal attributions, academic self-concept, and learning approaches of 549 university students in Hong Kong were studied. Students were enrolled in two different disciplines: language/health studies (n=272) and construction/engineering (n=277). Measurements of causal dimensions, academic self-concept, learning…

This paper analyzes the results of three studies about teacher causal explanation of failure in the Brazilian public elementary schools. Confronted with very high incidence of school dropout and retention, the investigators asked public school teachers to choose the main determinants of dropout and failure in their schools. Two studies were…

Causal attribution has been found to have a great effect on future performance. Causal attributions were studied across two academic subjects and two outcomes using an open-ended measure. All 180 ninth-graders in a girls' high school in the Bay Area of San Francisco (California) stated their best and worst subjects and provided their perceived…

Examines how people with a high-achievement need attribute success to their ability and effort and failure to external factors such as task difficulty. Contrasts this behavior with people who have a low-achievement need. The measuring device was a multiple-choice questionnaire designed to reveal participant tendencies. (MJP)