Understanding Success and Failure at Tests Via Students’ Causal Attributions

Abstract

Research on causal attributions (Weiner, 1974, 1992; Covington, 1992; Graham, 1991, 1994) has shown that students’ perceptions of the causes of their successes and failures will affect their expectations, and thereby their futureachievement behaviour. The present study aims to gain insights into how students in the English Department at the University of Algiers interpret their perceived successes and failures at tests. Of special interest were differences in attributions between “successful” and “less successful” students. A total of eighty-one students participated in this study at the beginning of their third year. Data were collected by means of an open questionnaire, a rating scale and a group interview. The results revealed that students attribute their perceived successes mostly to effort and interest (internal factors). On the other hand, failure was explained by teacher’s severity in marking and test difficulty(external factors). This is a classic example of the “ego-serving bias” (Miller and Ross, 1975), according to which individuals are predicted torespond with more internality to success as compared to failure in order to protect their self-esteem.The results also showed that statistically significant differences were found between “successful” and “less successful” students in their causal attributions for failure. “Less successful” students seem to have an external locus of control when accounting for their failures, which suggests an apparent lack of autonomy. Another noteworthy finding is that “successful” students were found to manifest a high degree of achievement motivation, reflected in their high attribution of success to effort. The findings of this study suggest that students should learn to take responsibility for their achievement outcomes. Moreover, “less successful” students should be taught to attach more value to effort as a cause of academic success.