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Summary. The two‐fold purpose of this study was to validate the School Failure Tolerance (SFT) scale and to identify developmental patterns and sex differences in children's academic risk‐taking and tolerance for failure. Fourth‐, fifth‐, and sixth‐graders were given the SFT and a chance to select and work 12 of 80 or 90 problems, of varying difficulty, in each of three content areas: mathematics, spelling and vocabulary. The SFT reliably predicted the difficulty level chosen by students at all grade levels and in all content areas. Students at all grade levels chose problems considerably below their ability levels as defined by mean performance on standardised achievement tests. This low risk‐taking tendency increased markedly with grade level. Students chose problems resulting in mean absolute success of between 77 per cent and 92 per cent — levels far in excess of the 50 per cent level theoretically associated with optimum motivation. Furthermore, mean scores on two of three SFT subscales decreased significantly from grade four to grade six. There were no sex by grade interactions and only one of ten variables revealed a significant sex difference. These findings are interpreted and discussed in terms of motivational theories and classroom factors.

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Selected findings on risk taking derived from theories of economics and psychology and thought to be relevant to education are presented. The theoretical benefits associated with moderate (.50 probability of success) levels of risk taking, as well as the potential problems associated with the use of risk-taking activities as means of enhancing student learning and motivation, are discussed. A program of research designed to identify the determinants and effects of academic risk taking (i.e., selection of school-relevant tasks varying in difficulty) among children and adults is reviewed. Although students admitted having low tolerance for error making and failure, initial results indicate that (a) they could be encouraged to take moderate academic risks, (b) they were interested in academic risk-taking tasks, and (c) risktaking tasks facilitated learning and appeared to elicit increased effort expenditure. Suggestions for further theory-and field-based research in academic risk: taking are offered, including the study of relations between academic risk-taking variables and motivation, information-processing, cognitive development, measurement, and curriculum development variables.

SUMMARY. The effects of attributing academic failure to effort or strategy were examined with the use of college students and teachers as subjects. Both the attitude and future performance of a college freshman described as receiving a GPA of 1.8 ( C -) on her first semester's work were judged to be significantly more positive when poor performance was attributed to strategy in contrast to effort. A measure of perceived affect produced an interaction which indicated that college teachers, but not students, perceived affect to be more positive under effort attributions.A secondary purpose of this research was to examine the effects of having subjects judge perceived affect either before or after making judgments on attitude and future performance. Data suggest that the initial processing of affect may lead to more positive judgments of attitude and future performance on the part of teachers but less positive judgments on the part of students. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. INTRODUCTIONIT has been well established within attribution theory that the stability dimension and its related internal attributions of ability and effort have far-reaching behavioural and affective consequences. Expectancies of future success are relatively low when failure is attributed t o a stable cause such as lack of ability and relatively high when failure is attributed to an unstable cause such as lack of effort