A number of studies suggest that attribution training, i.e., teaching children to attribute learning outcomes to effort, may help children to overcome such problems as learned helplessness (Craske, 1988, Dweck, 1975), improve performance after failure (Andrews and Debus, 1978, Craske, 1988, Dweck, 1975) and improve academic progress in the long term. In a study of strategy-based reading comprehension in children with learning disabilities, Borkowski, Weyhing and Carr (1988) note that because children with learning disabilities develop antecedent attributions (or “long-standing beliefs about personal causality” p.46), they may not be able to “use, appreciate or generalise newly acquired strategy to reading assignments” p.46. Consequently, Borkowski et al suggest that such children should undergo reattribution training in addition to training on strategy in order that they benefit from other interventions and attempts to teach them skills and strategies. Thus, reattribution training should attempt to change the children’s antecedent attributional beliefs and thus their general attitudes about achievement outcomes, as providing task-specific reattribution training alone does not promote generalisation to other tasks.
Research also suggests that hyperactive children, who often develop learning difficulties and similarly show maladaptive attributional beliefs, could benefit from this approach. In a study on the effect of antecedent and programme-specific attribution training in combination with self-control training on the use of strategic behaviours (i.e., rehearsal strategies), Reid and Borkowski (1987) found that children in the combined attribution and self-control training group used more complex rehearsal strategies and developed stronger beliefs about the importance of effort compared to a control group who received only self-control training. Furthermore, children in the combined group showed less hyperactivity in the classroom.
However, research suggests that not all learning-disabled or hyperactive children may benefit from reattribution training. In a study of the effects of attribution training on primary school children whose arithmetic performance deteriorated after they had experienced failure, Craske (1988) found that while some children developed a state of ‘learned helplessness’ others were more likely to protect their self worth by ascribing failures to low effort or task difficulty and thus avoiding inferences of low ability. This performance of the ‘self worth’ group did not improve after training and Craske concluded that encouraging some children to try harder may place ‘self worth’ children under stress. It may therefore be important to distinguish between these two groups when planning interventions. Forsterling (1985) also urges caution when encouraging children to try harder, arguing that “leading a person to attribute success (especially at an easy task) to high effort might at the same time foster a conclusion of low ability” (p.504), whereas attributing failures to lack of effort could also give rise to feelings of guilt, which could also be detrimental to performance. Conversely, Mueller and Dweck (1998) reported that praise for intelligence can lead children to feel pressurised to continue to perform and they may then begin to avoid tasks that contain any risk of failure, similar to the ‘self worth’ group in Craske’s (1988) study. They also found, however, that praise for hard work enabled children to develop more adaptive achievement behaviours after failure than praise for ability. Possible gender differences is also a factor that should be taken into account, since research indicates that females may be more susceptible to learned helplessness than males, though results are far from conclusive. Burgner and Hewstone (1993), for example, found that boys exhibited self-serving attributions in the face of failure whereas girls selected self-derogating attributions. However, studies by Craske (1988) and Kistner, Osborne and LeVerrier (1988) did not support these findings.
In addition, it has also been suggested that attributional style differs with age. Butler (1984), for example, reported that younger children, below ages 11-12, have an incremental view of ability (i.e. they believe it is changeable and can be modified by effort), whereas older children are aware that ability is stable. Thus, attribution retraining should take developmental differences into account, especially for children with learning difficulties, who may be slower to develop an understanding of the relationship between effort and ability. Furthermore, Butler recommends that teachers should adapt communications about a child’s performance to the child’s social-cognitive capacities. Therefore, it would appear that although reattribution training is very effective at altering maladaptive beliefs, a child’s age, gender and particular attribution style must be taken into account.
In addition to changing the attributional style of children with learning difficulties, attribution training has proved to be of benefit to children with behaviour problems. Contrary to the expectation that behaviour problems may reflect an excessive externalisation of negative events (i.e. not taking responsibility for one’s own misdemeanours), a study by Eslea (1999) revealed that boys in a school for severe behaviour problems who were unresponsive to the school’s behaviour programme in fact made significantly more personal attributions for negative events than for positive events. In contrast, those who were making good progress tended to make more global and internal attributions for positive events. Eslea concluded that the tendency to attribute positive events to external causes (a depressed attributional style) prevented these children from internalising and generalising the school’s traditional behaviour modification techniques. He noted that an increased awareness of attributions among teachers could increase the effectiveness of the school’s behaviour programme and recommended that rewarding self-enhancing attributions would enable children to generalise those attributions to new situations.
Although the focus of the essay has been on the attributions of children, the attributions of teachers also play a significant part in influencing children’s learning and behaviour. As Moses and Croll (1985) report “teachers’ ideas about the causes of special needs, particularly learning difficulties and behaviour problems, are likely to affect the attitudes they take towards children with special needs and so to influence the ways in which they react towards them in the classroom” p.42. They found that primary school teachers attributed classroom behaviour problems to home factors in over 80 per cent of cases and identified pupil-related factors as explanations for learning difficulties in over 78 per cent of cases. Conversely, they are more likely to take credit for positive behaviour and results (Miller, 1996). If a teacher is seen to take credit for a child’s successes but to attribute the child’s failures to the child, understandably the teachers’ attributional style is likely to have a negative effect on the child’s, causing the child to attribute his failures to internal factors and successes to external factors. Furthermore teachers’ attributions about a child’s behaviour will similarly affect the child’s own attributions. If teachers ascribe good behaviour to external factors and bad behaviour to internal, stable factors, the child’s behaviour is hardly likely to improve. As Fredrickson points out “When the behaviour of such a pupil shows improvement teachers may express the view that the pupil hasn’t really changed and is just “being good” to obtain particular rewards or avoid sanctions.” p.37. Thus an awareness of attributional styles would be of significant benefit to teachers and the educational psychologist can help to facilitate this awareness. As Miller (1996) argues “the attributions teachers make for pupil behaviour are likely in some instances to remain considerable stumbling-blocks to any form of intervention unless they are incorporated more explicitly into the legitimate domains for EPs enquiries and action” (p.152). Furthermore, the educational psychologist can also improve collaboration between parents and teachers. Highlighting the need to establish better relationships between parents and teachers and educational psychologists, Bowers (1994) reported that parents tend to attribute stable personality characteristics to education officers with whom they have had negative experiences, but attribute positive experiences to external factors (e.g. “it’s his job” or that’s what they’re paid to do”.). He recommends that education officers should take time to listen and ‘establish an open dialogue’ with parents and Fredrickson (1988) similarly advocates an approach whereby the psychologist should engage in “explicit or accessible reasoning, sharing with parents and carers their attributions and their developing understanding of aspects of a problem situation”. p. 41
In conclusion, attribution theory is extremely relevant to educational psychology. The evidence presented suggests that children with learning difficulties develop maladaptive beliefs about their abilities and attribute their failures to internal, stable causes and successes to external causes. The application of attribution theory to education can help motivate such children and improve their performance after failure by addressing their attributional styles. Furthermore, reattributional training has also been shown to be effective in reducing hyperactivity and improving the learning of children with ADHD. Similarly, children who have behaviour problems have been shown to have ‘depressed’ attributional styles, which may be altered if teachers reward self-enhancing attributions. Indeed, awareness of attributional styles in teachers would be highly beneficial and would prevent their attributions for children’s’ behaviour from negatively impacting on children’s attributions. Furthermore, as Bowers (1994) highlighted, attribution theory may help to improve collaboration between the parents of children with learning difficulties and educational psychologists and teachers.
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