Development of the Magnitude-Covariation and Compensation Schemata in Ability and Effort Attributions of Performance

Kun, Anna

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1977.tb01242.x

Cited by 19 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In another condition, participants were given ability and performance information and were instructed to predict the amount of eVort that the person put into the task. The results were similar (see also Kun, 1977). Miller (1982) examined the way in which children and college students judge how many items a child will learn as a function of the interest of these items and the noise level of the classroom.…”

Section: Previous Studies On Children's and Adolescents' Use Of Direcmentioning

confidence: 64%

Functional learning among children, adolescents, and young adults

Lafon¹,

Chasseigne²,

Mullet³

2004

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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Section: Previous Studies On Children's and Adolescents' Use Of Direcmentioning

confidence: 64%

Functional learning among children, adolescents, and young adults

Lafon¹,

Chasseigne²,

Mullet³

2004

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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“…Nicholls's work, as well as work by a variety of other researchers (Kun, 1977;Marsh, Cairns, Relich, Barnes, & Debus, 1984;Rholes et al, 1980), suggests that young children might not understand effort and ability in the same way as adults do. Age-related limits on the capacity to understand the reciprocal relation between these dimensions may moderate the relation of ability and effort attributions to children's motivation and affect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Age-related changes in children’s understanding of effort and ability: Implications for attribution theory and motivation

Folmer¹,

Cole²,

Sigal³

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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Building on Nicholls's earlier work, we examined developmental changes in children's understanding of effort and ability when faced with a negative outcome. In a sample of 166 children and adolescents (ages 5-15 years), younger children conflated the meaning of effort and ability, explaining that smart students work hard, whereas older children understood effort and ability to be reciprocally related constructs, explaining that smart students do not need to work as hard. Understanding the reciprocal relation between effort and ability was correlated with age. Age-related changes in the meaning and correlates of effort and ability were also examined. Developmental implications for attribution theory and achievement motivation are discussed.

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“…In the wake of resea rch by Kun (1977) and Nic ho lls ( 1978) the more frequent interpretation of this evolution is clearly influenced by the Piaget an theory on cognitive and moral development (Piag et, 1932, Piaget & Inhelder, 1949 . Chi ldren of 5-6 years explain the ir performances using all ca uses th at are presented to them .…”

Section: Cognitive Development and Causal Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chi ldren of 5-6 years explain the ir performances using all ca uses th at are presented to them . The y are cons idered to use an additive cau sal principle (halo sc hema according to Kun , 1977 ) as they are unable to process simultaneously the whol e arrange of cau sal factors . Differentiation of factors (e.g., between e ffort and ability), implyin g comparison between them , would only start aro und 8 years and would progressively result , at about 10-12 years, in the use ofa prin ciple of reversal of the importance of factors (Nicholls, 1978 ;Surber, 1980).…”

Section: Cognitive Development and Causal Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A developmental study of school performance explanations of 6 to 11-year-olds: Causal differentiation and internality norm

1996

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Children's explanations of their performances are characterized by an increase of internal explanations over external ones. Originally considered a manifestation of cognitive development, this change has more recently been considered as an appropriation of a social norm. Two investigations are presented analyzing development of causal explanations ofsuccess and failure in mathematics and drawing. In the first study, two measures ofcausal attribution are compared in order to show that the use ofunipolar scales is more suitable for illustrating differences in causal factors progressively operated by children. The hypothesis ofthe appropriation ofa norm of internality is investigated in the second study. Results do not confirm this hypothesis and further, they cannot be interpreted solely in terms of cognitive development. They are discussed in the frame ofa theory ofsocio-cognitive development.In this research the development of children's explanations of their own achievements is investigated in order to analyze the combinations of normative and cognitive factors in the development of causal analysis. In this area, Weiner's model Weiner & Kukla, 1970;Weiner, Russell, & Lerman, 1978) has often been used as it permits researchers to test specific hypotheses derived from Kelley's theory (1972). This familiar model is based on the distinction between four causal factors organized along two dimensions: internal (effort, ability) versus external (task difficulty, luck) and stable (ability, task difficulty) versus unstable (effort, luck).We thank Nicole Dubois and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Development of the Magnitude-Covariation and Compensation Schemata in Ability and Effort Attributions of Performance

Cited by 19 publications

References 14 publications

Functional learning among children, adolescents, and young adults

Functional learning among children, adolescents, and young adults

Age-related changes in children’s understanding of effort and ability: Implications for attribution theory and motivation

A developmental study of school performance explanations of 6 to 11-year-olds: Causal differentiation and internality norm

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