Children's expectancies and teachers' attributions for academic achievement in some English junior schools

Abstract

The Intellectual Achievement Responsibility (1AR) questionnaire was administered to 1292 English school pupils aged 9.8 to 12.5 years. The 51 teachers of those pupils were asked, first, to assess their pupils' degree of acceptance of responsibility for school successes and failures, and secondly, to what they attributed the strength of educational motivation of each pupil. A questionnaire was then given to 57 trainee-teachers to find what they would say to children who had failed to do some work successfully for (as the trainees thought) various different reasons. The teachers proved poor judges of acceptance of responsibility in their pupils. Also, they never referred to this as a factor influencing motivation. Teachers concentrated on influences not amenable to change. When trainees were induced to attribute pupil failure to unchangeable influences, they would make comments to pupils that were less helpful and motivating than otherwise.