ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Beliefs about Causes and Control
Beliefs and Self-Schemas
• What do students
believe about
themselves – their
competence and the
causes for success or
failure?
• Let us start with a
basic question:
“What do they
believe about
ability?”
Beliefs and Self-Schemas
Entity view of
ability
Incremental view of
ability
• Belief that ability is a
fixed characteristic
that cannot be
changed
• Belief that ability is a
set of skills that can
be changed
Attribution Theories of
Motivation
• Describe how the individual’s explanations,
justifications, and excuses about self or others
influence motivation.
• According to Bernard Weiner, most of the attributed
causes for successes or failures can be characterized in
terms of 3 dimensions:
1. locus (location of the cause –internal or
external to the person)
2. stability (whether the cause is likely to stay
the same in the near future or can change), and
3. controllability (whether the person can
control the cause).
Attribution Theory
• Every cause for success or failure can be
categorized on these 3 dimensions
(locus, stability, controllability).
• For example, luck is external (locus),
unstable (stability), and uncontrollable
(controllability).
• Ability is usually considered stable and
uncontrollable, but incremental theorists
would argue that ability is unstable and
controllable.
Attribution Theory
• Feeling in control of your own learning
seems to be related to choosing more
difficult academic tasks, putting out
more effort, using better strategies, and
persisting longer in schoolwork (Scunk,
2000; Weiner, 1994a, 1994b).
Attributions in the Classroom
• When usually successful students fail, they
often make internal, controllable
attributions: They misunderstood the
directions, lacked the necessary
knowledge, or simply did not study hard
enough.
• As a consequence, they usually focus on
strategies for succeeding next time.
• This often leads to achievement, pride,
and a greater feeling of control
(Ames, 1992; Stipek, 2002).
Attributions in the
Classroom
• The greatest
motivational
problems arise when
students attribute
failures to stable,
uncontrollable
causes.
• Such students may
seem resigned to
failure, depressed,
helpless--unmotivated
(Weiner, 2000).
Beliefs about Self-Efficacy
and Learned Helplessness
• Self-efficacy is our
belief about our
personal
competence or
effectiveness in a
given area.
• Bandura (1997)
defines self-efficacy
as “beliefs in one’s
capabilities to
organize and
execute the
courses of action
required to
produce given
attainments” (p.3).
Self-Efficacy &
Attributions
• Self-efficacy and
attributions affect
each other.
• If success is
attributed to
internal or
controllable causes
such as ability or
effort, then selfefficacy is enhanced.
• But if success is
attributed to luck or
to the intervention
of others, then selfefficacy may not be
strengthened.
Learned Helplessness
• When people come • Learned Helplessness
appears to cause 3 types of
to believe that the
events and
outcomes in their
lives are mostly
uncontrollable,
they have developed
learned helplessness
(Seligman, 1975).
deficits: motivational,
cognitive, and affective.
• Students who feel hopeless
will be unmotivated and
reluctant to attempt work.
• Because they become
pessimistic about learning,
they miss practice to
improve skills and abilities,
so they develop cognitive
deficits.
Beliefs about Self-Worth
• Covington and his
colleagues suggest
that attributions and
beliefs about ability,
self-efficacy, and
self-worth come
together in 3 kinds
of motivational sets:
1. Mastery-oriented
students
2. Failure-Avoiding
Students
3. Failure-Accepting
Students
(Source: From Educational Psychology Figure, p.430 by A.
Woolfolk, 2008)
Beliefs about Self-Worth
(Woolfolk, 2008)
 Teachers may be able to prevent some failure-avoiding
students from becoming failure accepting by helping
them to find new and more realistic goals.
 Some students may need support in aspiring to higher
levels in the face of sexual or ethnic stereotypes about
what they should want or what they should not be able
to do well.
 Instead of pitying or excusing these students, teachers
can teach them how to learn and then hold them
accountable.
 This will help the students develop sense of selfefficacy for learning and avoid learned helplessness.
(Source: From Educational Psychology Figure, p.432 by A.
Woolfolk, 2008)
Reflect:
How do beliefs about ability affect
motivation?
What are the 3 dimensions of attributions
in Weiner’s theory? Explain.
What is self-efficacy and how does it
relate to learned helplessness?
What can we do to help students develop
their sense of self-efficacy?