Task information and attributions for academic performance by professional teachers and roleplayers

A Systematic Review of Teachers’ Causal Attributions: Prevalence, Correlates, and Consequences

“…Teachers’ attributions for student performance have also been found to impact teachers’ instructional behaviors. Findings show attributions for poor student performance to low ability to correspond with encouragement of students and willingness to provide assistance, with attributions for student failure to low effort generating more criticism toward students, negative feedback, and a lower tendency to offer help (e.g., suggestions; Cooper and Lowe, 1977; Tollefson and Chen, 1988; Butler, 1994; Matteucci et al, 2008b; Woodcock and Jiang, 2013). Teachers also tended to call on other students to assist and offer expedited help (e.g., providing correct answers) to students perceived as low in ability and responded more strictly to students perceived as low in effort in requiring them to invest more time on future tasks (Butler, 1994).…”

“…Concerning teachers taking personal responsibility for student failures, findings are mixed. Whereas some showing teachers to perceive themselves as less responsible than students for student failures (e.g., regardless of how it is attributed by teachers; Tollefson et al, 1990, 1991; Matteucci, 2007) and others showing teachers to take more responsibility for students’ failures than their successes (e.g., Ross et al, 1974; Cooper and Lowe, 1977; Cooper and Burger, 1980; Burger et al, 1982; Tom and Cooper, 1986).…”

Consequences of Costa Rican teachers' attributions for students' failure

“…The controllability dimension is related to behaviour, liking (sentiments), and evaluating others (Brandt, Hayden and Brophy, 1975;Brophy and Good, 1974;Cooper and Baron, 1977;Cooper and Burger, 1980;Cooper and Lowe, 1977;Ickles and Kidd, 1976;Medway, 1979;Weiner, 1979;Weiner and Kukla, 1970). According to theory, expectancy of success will be lower if failure is explained by a stable factor (ability) than if failure is explained by an unstable factor (effort).…”

Causal Perception of Pupils’ Success or Failure by Teachers and Pupils: A Comparison

“…Recently , there has been a growing interest in applying the knowledge of social psychology to education through the emergence of a new subdiscipline-social psychology of education (Bar-Tal & Saxe, 1978). Within social psychology of education, research regarding teachers' expectations and attributions and pupils' attributions has received wide attention (e.g., Ames, Ames, & Felker, 1977;Andrews & Debus, 1978 ;Borko & Shavelson, 1978;Cooper & Baron, 1977;Cooper & Low, 1977). The purpose of the present study is to explore further teachers' and pupils' attributions and their relationship to teachers' expectations.…”