Abstract:

Various measurement tools are used to examine how causal attributions predict academic achievement in the general population. It is well known that students’ motivation to learn and academic success or failure depend on their proactive causal attributions about the effort invested in learning. There is a lack of data/research on this topic, although existing research and theoretical models suggest that causal attributions may be relevant in predicting the academic achievement of students with specific learning disabilities (SLD).
The aim of the present pilot study is therefore: 1) to determine the reliability of the measurement of student attributions separately for two groups of students with and without SLD and 2) to determine the differences in the evaluation of school success/failure attributions between these two groups. The overall sample consisted of 499 students (male=46.9%; M=12.4 years, SD =1,205) from 5th to 8th grade of primary school in Croatia. A subsample of 71 students had a school record of SLD (male=57.7%; M=12.6 years, SD =1.22), while most students did not have a school record of SLD (male=45.1%; M=12.4 years, SD =1.20). The School Success and Failure Attribution Scale was used to examine students’ assessment of the attribution of success and failure to internal and external stable and unstable causes.
Reliability analysis showed that the scale is reliable for both groups of participants. Students with and without SLD differ in attribution style on five of eight dimensions. Compared to students without SLD, students with SLD attribute situations in which they have achieved good academic success to a much greater extent to external stable and external unstable causes (to the teacher's favour and to luck) and academic failure to internal stable causes (lack of ability) and external stable and unstable causes (to difficult and uninteresting academic tasks and to chance). Interestingly, these two groups of students do not differ in the attribution of school success and failure to effort as a proactive self-regulated learning strategy. On the contrary, students with SLD differ from students without SLD in defensive patterns of causal attributions. These students perceive external stable and unstable causes to a greater extent in school success and failure situations. They also attribute school failure to internalised factors such as lack of ability, which can lead to learned helplessness.
According to these preliminary results, it seems that students with SLD have a predominantly defensive pattern of self-regulated learning, attributing academic successes and failures to external causes, maintaining the image of the importance of investing effort in learning, and attributing academic failures to insufficient abilities for learning.

Keywords:

Specific learning disorder, attributional style, school success and failure.