A Longitudinal Examination of African American Adolescents’ Attributions About Achievement Outcomes

Abstract

Developmental, gender, and academic domain differences in causal attributions and the influence of attributions on classroom engagement were explored longitudinally in 115 African American adolescents. In Grades 8 and 11, adolescents reported attributions for success and failure in math, English and writing, and science. In Grade 11, English and mathematics teachers rated students’ classroom engagement. Boys were more likely than girls to attribute math successes to high ability and to attribute English failures to low ability. Both genders’ ability attributions for math became more negative from eighth to eleventh grade. Grade 8 attributions of math failure to lack of ability were negatively related to Grade 11 math classroom engagement. Results illustrate the gendered nature of motivational beliefs among Black youth.

Reading‐Related Causal Attributions for Success and Failure: Dynamic Links With Reading Skill

“…In studies that have not explicitly recruited children identified as European American, the majority/minority or ethnic status has not been fully described. With increasing numbers of children of minority backgrounds being educated in the U.S. school system, limited or underspecified sampling is increasingly unjustified (for rare counterexamples, see Cox & Yang, ; Swinton, Kurtz‐Costes, Rowley, & Okeke‐Adeyanju, ). According to data from the U.S. Census, 55% of elementary and secondary students were from non‐Hispanic European American backgrounds, whereas 23% were Hispanic and 14% were African American (U.S. Census Bureau, ; see also National Center for Education Statistics, ).…”

“…In addition, Swinton et al. () explored attributions of African American students and found significant sex differences across various subject domains. With a large presence of European American samples among attribution and reading motivation literature, there is a need to explore how such factors are related to reading skill among other races and ethnic groups.…”

Self-views of African-American Youth are Related to the Gender Stereotypes and Ability Attributions of Their Parents

“…These stereotypes shape how parents interpret their own children’s academic successes and failures and how their children interpret their own performance. As Weiner and others have illustrated, individuals’ attributions about the causal factors driving achievement outcomes have a strong motivational influence on achievement striving (Graham, 1991; Nicholls, 1984; Swinton et al, 2011; Weiner, 2005). Whereas attributions of success to ability lead to engagement, persistence, and greater achievement, attributions of failure to lack of ability are associated with the most negative long-term motivational and achievement outcomes (Kiefer & Shih, 2006; Weiner, 2005; Wigfield, 1988).…”

“…The nature of academic stereotypes – they are stable and are based on beliefs about the abilities of members of a group – makes it likely that holders of these stereotypes make ability-based causal attributions for the performance of members of the stereotyped group (Kiefer & Shih, 2006; Reyna, 2000; Swinton, Kurtz-Costes, Rowley, & Adeyanju, 2011). One of our primary research questions was whether mothers who hold traditional gender academic stereotypes (i.e., boys are better than girls in math and science; girls are better in verbal domains) would apply these beliefs to their own children--for example, being more likely to explain verbal successes of daughters than verbal successes of sons as due to high verbal ability.…”

Contextual Factors Related to African American Adolescent Career Development

“…African American students’ limited belief in the value of education and its connection to future career rewards poses another potential career barrier (Toldson & Owens, ). Much research has placed emphasis on ethnic differences in academic achievement, which may contribute to this negative perception of the value of education and overall career interests and career decision self‐efficacy (CDSE; Swinton, Kurtz‐Costes, Rowley, & Okeke‐Adeyanju, ). According to the latest statistics retrieved from the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (Stillwell & Sable, ), African Americans had the lowest average graduation rate at 66.1% among all racial and ethnic groups compared to 83% of White Americans enrolled in public schools during the 2009/2010 school year.…”