Session title
• Science and Mathematics Education
Lecture title
• Secondary School Mathematics Student Teachers’ Causal Attribution of
Success and Failure in Mathematics
Name of presenter
• Savaş BAŞTÜRK
• Sinop University, Turkey
Date of presentation
• Tuesday, July 2
Time of presentation
• 10.00-11.30
Room
• D205
Attribution Theory
 Attribution theory deals with the question of how
individuals make judgments about occurred events
around them.
 Weiner (1979) categorized the dimensions of
attribution of failure and success into three main
aspects: locus of causality (internal or external),
stability (stable or unstable), and controllability
(controllable or uncontrollable).
Dimensions of Attribution Theory
 The locus of causality dimension means whether the cause is
internal or external to the subject.
İnternal
•Ability
•Effort
External
•Task difficulty
•Luck
 The stability dimension puts into question whether the cause is
invariant or changeable over time.
Stable
Unstable
• Task difficulty
• Luck
• Effort
 The controllability dimension addresses whether the cause is
personally or externally controllable or uncontrollable.
Controllable
Uncontrollable
• Task difficulty
• Luck
• Effort
Relationship between Causal Attributions and
Academic Achievement
 Causal attributions define the person’s attitude to
success or failure (Weiner, 1979, 1986).
 Defining attributions can overcome some negative
effects of failure (Forsyth & McMillan, 1991; McMillan & Forsyth,
1991).
 The effort of changing attributions can change their
self-accusation circle and help prevent some possible
failures and low performance in future that can
occur in other attempts (Wilson, Damiani, & Shelton, 2002).
Effects of Teacher Causal Attributions on
Students
 There is a relationship between the way students explain
the causes of their academic performance and academic
achievement (House, 2003; Kivilu & Rogers, 1998; McMillan & Forsyth,
1981).
 Causes attributed by teachers for explaining their
students’ success and failure are very important, by virtue
of their potential to impact students’ own attributions
through teacher behavior (Fennema, Peterson, Carpenter, &
Lubinski, 1990).
 Attributions make a major contribution to the forming of
expectancies that teachers hold for students’ future
academic success (Clarkson & Leder, 1984; Peterson & Barger, 1985).
The purpose of this study
 The purpose of this study was to examine
mathematics student teachers’ causal attributions
of success and failure on mathematics.
 We had two reasons for conducting this study: the
first one was lack of relevant research in Turkish
literature.
 Different cultural background is an important
variable in causal attributions.
The purpose of this study
 Turkish student teachers’ ways of making
judgments such as attribution may be different and
need to be investigated.
 The other reason was to consider that, at the end
of a 4-year education, with what perspectives in
terms of causal attribution student teachers
graduated from the education faculty.
Method
 The research design used for the study was a
descriptive survey method.
 The participants in this study were 28 student
teachers from the department of Secondary
School Mathematics Education.
 A questionnaire composed of one open-ended
question was administered to student teachers.
 The participants were asked to select as point of
reference a student in their classroom who
exhibited the lowest performance in math.
Method
 They were asked to give details about their reasons for
a student’s failure and success.
 Their written responses were examined and
qualitatively analyzed for the common themes by
means of a qualitative analysis software (Nvivo8).
 Student teachers’ responses were classified and then
categories and sub-categories were determined.
 To determine the inter-judge reliability of the open-
ended question, data and categories were examined by
the researcher and two experts from the department.
Results
 Causes student teachers attribute to explain for
students’ failure in mathematics were focused on
four different main categories.
 These are as follows: causes from students (26
student teachers), from teaching and learning
methods (24 student teachers), reasons due to the
nature of mathematics itself (9 student teachers)
and physical causes (4 student teachers).
Lack of innate math
ability (f=10),
Lack of math intelligence
(f=8),
Innate talents (f=17)
Causal attribution related to
student (N=26)
Lack of development of
abstract intelligence (f=5)
interesting in math(f=10)
Predisposition for
problem solving (f=2)
loving (f=9),
Loving and interesting in math (f=14)
showing enthusiasm for
mathematics (f=3)
student’s choice (f=1)
Lack of a solid math
background (f=8)
Properties not innate
(f=12)
Lack of a target (f=2)
Irregularity and bad
planning (f=2)
Causes from the nature of
mathematics itself (N=9)
Math is a progressive science (f=5)
Lack of knowledge of methods for studying
mathematics (f=3)
Math is abstract and unrelated to
the everyday life (f=2)
Topics in math are a lot and
incomprehensive (f=2)
Causes from teaching and learning of
mathematics (N=24)
Making students love math
(f=10)
Teacher (f=17)
Having great math
knowledge (f=6)
Way of lecturing (f=6)
Teaching based on memorization (f=12)
Method of teaching (f=14)
Teaching clearly and
simply (f=2)
Associating math
with everyday life
(f=1)
Educational
System
(f=4)
Causes related to social
environment and physical
conditions (N=12)
Negative attitudes toward math from social
environment (f=5)
Lack of infrastructure in school
(f=3)
Lack of someone at home who
helps child (f=3)
Interest of family in
child (f=2)
Economical
causes (f=1)
Conclusion and Discussion
 Sure, there are many important results of my study to be
discussed. However, because of time constraint, I limit
myself to elaborate some of them.
 The results of this study have shown that in the student
teachers’ causal attributions there are four different factors:
student, teaching and learning methods, nature of
mathematics and physical causes.
 One of the most important results of the study is that a
significant number of the student teachers explain success
and failure in mathematics by associating with innate
talent in mathematics which is internal , stable and
uncontrollable factor in the terminology of Weiner.
Conclusion and Discussion
 According to National Research Council (1991), the
common proverb of “success in mathematics
depends more on innate than on hard work” is one
of the most dangerous and most persistent myths
related to mathematics education.
 This study showed that this idea still conserves its
validity in many student teahers.
Conclusion and Discussion
 From the results of the studies on the attribution
theory, it can be asserted that these student
teachers, for students they consider as having
lack of innate talent , do not make too much
efforts to improve or change their present
situation.
 We can easly find many results which support
our assuption.
Conclusion and Discussion
 In their study they examined the relationship
between teacher attributions of student failure and
teacher self-reported behavior toward the failing or
low-achieving student, Georgiou et al., (2002) found
that teachers tend to behave in ways that indicate
more pity and less anger when they attribute a
student’s low achievement to her or his low abilities,
whereas they express more anger when attributing
low achievement to the student’s low effort.
Thanks for listening
Some extracts from student teachers’
responses
 In my opinion, the ability of innate intelligence is very important.
Someone who has it can understand and solve problems more quickly. As
such, it would be more patient. But someone who has not this ability, if
s/he does not like mathematics, this person cannot be successful (Student
Teacher 20).
 In addition, in order to be successful in mathematics lesson, there should
be the capability of this lesson. While some people spend more effort to
understand a simple thing in mathematics, others can easily solve many
difficult problems, because, everybody has different capabilities, so it is
not reasonable to expect that everybody succeeds in mathematics. Every
voice is not suitable to sing; similarly everybody cannot succeed in
mathematics (Student Teacher 22).
Some extracts from student teachers’
responses
 In order to succeed in mathematics, a student must first love this course.
Somebody is congenitally interested in this course, while others are late to
become interested in it. But for this, it is also needed to love. At this point,
teachers have great responsibilities, because until now, I have seen that
people do not love mathematics, they also do not love their mathematics
teachers (Student Teacher 14).
 (…) In addition, student interest, capability and willingness to learn are
important issues. You cannot teach one if s/he is not willing to learn. Even if
it happenes; these things will quickly be forgotten. That is, learning does not
recognize but memorization occurs. On the other hand, difficulty of topic to
be taught is another effect that influences student’s success in mathematics.
As a result, personal effort is very important (Student Teacher 17).