Introduction: The literature highlights that pupils with Specific Learning Disability (SLD) often reveal a poor meta-cognitive system, with low levels of attribution to internal factors like diligence and personal skill, and high levels of attribution to external factors like ease of task, luck or help from others. Methods: This study aims to…

The purpose of the authors' study was to understand the reasons why students comply with requests instructors make and compare these reasons with instructors' perceptions of why students comply. Students and faculty at two universities completed the Interpersonal Power Inventory to assess reasons for compliance. Students were more likely to comply…

In an effort to reduce failure and attrition rates to increase on-time program completion and graduation rates, many schools are adopting a policy of assigning minimum grades. While justifications supporting the policy are often mathematical in nature, some proponents also claim the practice works to keep students motivated, hopeful, confident and…

A study comparing mean locus of control and attribution scores of 137 elementary students found that underachieving gifted students' mean attribution scores were higher than other groups for ability in success situations. Underachieving gifted and non-gifted students' mean scores were higher than achieving gifted peers for externality and luck in…

Tested and extended Deaux's expectancy model of sex-linked differences in attribution for success. Finding's indicated that female occupational subjects, relative to males, tended to attribute success more to unstable causes of effort and luck. Male subjects attributed success more to the stable causes of ability and task ease. (Author/RC)

The connection between self-esteem, sex, and attributional style was examined in two studies. Results indicated that for positive events, high self-esteem subjects make more internal attributions than low self-esteem subjects, and for negative events, high self-esteem subjects make fewer internal attributions than low self-esteem subjects. The…

Examined depressive symptoms and achievement attributions in 51 attention deficit-disordered (ADD) and 51 normal school children. Found that ADD children acknowledged having more depressive symptoms and displayed more external attributions both for positive and for negative achievement than did normal children. (Author)

Parents' attributions of the jigsaw-puzzle performance of their child with Prader-Willi syndrome (n = 20) or Williams syndrome (n = 21) were examined. Parents in both groups placed more importance on internal versus external attributions. Parents of children with Prader-Willi syndrome exhibited a hedonic bias by attributing their child's success…

Research has provided support for the existence of certain actor-observer and self-serving biases in individuals' retrospective analyses about the causes of behavior. A question that has been relatively unexplored deals with whether the findings on actor-observer differences and the self-serving pattern in attributions are generalizable to…

This study compared the causal attribution by sex for academic failures of 38 learning disabled and 38 nondisabled elementary school students. The relationship between different attributional tendencies and a reading persistence task were also examined. (BS)

The achievement locus of control of 64 Hispanic and 87 Anglo students enrolled in grades 9-12 in 2 high schools in a large school district in the Southwest was examined with the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale (MMCS). Ethnic and sex differences in the attributions of academic success or failure to ability, effort, context, or…

Compared behavioral, self-evaluative, and attributional responses of boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to those of typically-developing boys on a social success and failure laboratory task. Found that ADHD boys rated their own performance more favorably than controls, were more likely to attribute success to external…

This study investigated the relationship between examinee achievement-specific locus of control and the differences between self-adapted testing (SAT) and computerized adaptive testing (CAT) in terms of mean estimated proficiency and posttest state anxiety. Subjects were 379 college students. A disordinal interaction was found between test type…

Examined the self-protective role of social attributions by comparing individual attributions made to the self, to one's ethnic group, and to factors external to oneself. Results from 309 Black, Hispanic, and White mothers show they all attributed positive outcomes to themselves, while Whites attributed failure to themselves personally. Middle-…

The objective of this study was to empirically validate West Germans' classifications of 11 attributions according to dimensions of locus, stability, controllability, predictability, and globality. The West German sample was then compared to an American sample. It is believed that West Germans and Americans develop different beliefs about the…