Teacher judgments and pupils’ causal explanations: Social valorization of effort-based explanations in school context

Abstract

Achievement evaluation in school contexts may be considered as a kind of social judgment, which is affected by social and moral determinants since it is not merely an estimation of pupils' accomplishment (Dompnier, Pansu, & Bressoux, 2006;Weiner, 2003). Teachers' judgments have been investigated starting from the analysis of two theoretical approaches: the norm of internality (Dubois, 2003), and the attributional approach to social motivation (Weiner, 2006). In order to study the social valorization of internal explanations referring to effort in school context, an empirical research has been conducted. Our study investigates how teachers evaluate fictitious pupils, which are supposed to explain events by means of different types of causal explanations. According to our results, pupils providing effort-based explanations receive more positive judgments. Findings are discussed by considering effort as a key principle of school environments.Achievement evaluation in school contexts may be considered as a kind of social judgment, which is affected by social and moral determinants, since it is not merely an estimation of pupils' accomplishment. The perceived causality of school failure/success, or the causes indicated by pupils to explain achievement-related events, have been explored as determinants of teachers' judgment by two main theoretical approaches, i.e., the norm of internality (Beauvois & Dubois, 1988, for a review: Pansu, Dubois, & Dompnier, this special issue), and the attributional approach as conceptualized by Weiner (2006, for a review: Reyna, this special issue).Several studies show that pupils and teachers explain school results (success or failure) through internal causal attribution on ability (cognitive abilities, aptitudes, skills or expertise),

Teachers’ sense of responsibility for educational outcomes and its associations with teachers’ instructional approaches and professional wellbeing

“…This result confirms existing literature, which revealed that teachers with an incremental theory are likely to focus more on students' strategy and effort in learning (Lee 1996) and to establish motivational climates consistent with a mastery classroom goal structure (Bra ˚ten and Strømsø 2004;Leroy et al 2007;Trouilloud et al 2006). Moreover, our results contribute to a better understanding of the process of connecting teachers' implicit theories of intelligence to their behavior, which was not clearly demonstrated by previous research (Deemer 2004;Matteucci 2007;Matteucci et al 2008). Indeed, according to our results, teachers' beliefs about the malleability of intelligence may boost their feeling of being responsible for educational outcomes (e.g.…”

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).…”

“…One such program is Attributional Retraining (AR); an intervention typically administered to students that encourages causal attributions for failure experiences that are personally controllable in nature, while at the same time discouraging attributions that either absolve responsibility through external attributions or focus instead on internal, uncontrollable factors (e.g., low ability; for reviews, see Haynes et al, 2009). Whether addressing teachers’ attributions for student outcomes (interpersonal) or their own teaching-related setbacks (intrapersonal), attribution-informed interventions such as AR are expected to prove effective in facilitating adaptive changes in teachers’ willingness to assist students (e.g., Tollefson and Chen, 1988; Matteucci et al, 2008b; Woodcock and Jiang, 2013) as well as their own psychological and physical health (e.g., see Hall et al, 2007 for similar AR methods with students; Wang et al, 2015).…”

“…According to attribution theory, individuals are particularly motivated to seek specific explanations for negative educational outcomes, with these causal attributions, in turn, having important consequences for academic development (Weiner, 1985, 2010). Whereas most research applying attribution theory to the classroom has focussed on students’ causal attributions for academic setbacks (for reviews, see Weiner, 1976; Wilson and Linville, 1982; Ames and Ames, 1984; Graham, 1984b, 1991; Forsterling, 1985; Graham and Williams, 2009), the nature and effects of teachers’ causal attributions for their classroom experiences has also received consistent empirical attention (Cooper and Lowe; 1977, study 2; Tollefson and Chen, 1988; Butler, 1994; Matteucci et al, 2008b; Wang et al, 2015). However, there to date exists no comprehensive review article in education literature of empirical research on the prevalence, correlates, and consequences of causal attributions for classroom challenges made by teachers.…”

Mindset in the secondary school classroom: interaction with social value of effort and contingencies of self-worth

“…Thus, there is a conflict between the perceptions of teachers and those of the peer group. Matteucci et al (2008) found that when teachers believed that a child's failure was a result of poor effort, their subsequent educational intervention was more severe and "with retributive purpose" (p. 29). When teachers ascribed failure to a lack of effort, they had an emotional "angry" response, but when they perceived that the pupil was not responsible for the failure their emotional response was sympathetic.…”