seegers, van putten, & vermeer (2004)

Seegers, G., Van Putten, C. M., Vermeer, H. J. (2004). Effects of Causal Attributions Following Mathematics Tasks on Student Cognitions About a Subsequent Task. The Journal of Experimental Education, 72(4), 307-328.

Choice of Study
Research on motivation and learning has emphasized the role of students' goal orientations. Goal orientation creates a framework for how students experience learning tasks in achievement settings and give meaning to learning opportunities. Contrasting goal orientations have been proposed (Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988; Nicholls, 1984). Task orientation motivates students to develop competence through expanding one's abilities by mastering challenging tasks. Ego oriented students, on the other hand, focus on demonstrating mental ability to others to increase self worth.

Seegers & Boekaerts (1993) and Skaalvik (1997) have argued that the dichotomy between task and ego orientation is not enough to explain the complexity of the concept of goal orientation. Seegers and Boekaerts (1993) found a parallel contrast between task orientation and error frustration. Error frustration occurs when task-oriented students, who display an interest in learning a task, are confronted with a disappointing task outcome. Students who agree that the task domain is relevant and interesting experience disappointment and frustration when confronted with a negative outcome. Frustration is focused on the protection of self worth and confirmation of ability by investing in additional effort whereas self-defeating ego orientation leads to avoiding public evaluation by diminishing effort investment and denial of task relevance.

Problem
Most studies have considered goal orientation as consistent across domains. Causal attributions of a mathematics task outcome contribute to how students adapt to a similar task on a subsequent, there is evidence that motivational orientations are sufficiently distinct across learning domains (Bong, 2001). This study restricted itself to the mathematics domain with goal orientation considered a domain-specific variable. In addition to goal orientation, students' ability beliefs influence their attitude when confronted with learning tasks and this study included students' self-concept of mathematics ability. The authors investigated how causal attributions of a mathematics task outcome contribute to how students adapt to a similar task.

Methods
The authors included 27 schools and collected data on 541 sixth-graders for the study. First, students answered questions on two questionnaires. A goal orientation questionnaire had 21 statements about experiences and behavior in mathematics classes (e.g. "I feel satisfied when I have learned something in mathematics that makes sense to me") and students answered on a 4-point Likert scale from 'Never' to 'Always.' The second questionnaire focused on self-concept of mathematics ability (" How good are you at...") with students responding on a 5-point scale from "very good" to "not good at all."

The students were then administered a mathematics test (questions were derived from a national assessment study, Wijnstra, 1988) over two sessions with students answering questions after each session from a third questionnaire that delved into motivation and willingness to invest effort.

The students were asked to rate perceived task outcome on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 4 (very good) as well as being given a number of causes to choose from to explain task outcome. They were also asked to rate how relevant each of the attributions were to the task outcome.

Results
There was a high correlation between self-concept of mathematics ability and subjective competence, moderate correlations between self concept of mathematics ability and task performance, task attraction, and willingness to invest effort.

The authors felt the model that included task performance plus appraisals adequately explained the effects that students will attribute a positive outcome to ability. Willingness to invest effort and perceived attractiveness of the task had a positive effect on the likelihood that students will ascribe a positive outcome to invested effort. (p. 320). There was also a correlation with subjective competence: as student's subjective competence rose, the greater the likelihood that students disagreed that lack of personal ability would explain a poor outcome.

Discussion
When confronted with actual learning tasks, students draw on a number of resources to determine the balance between estimated competence for the task and their willingness to invest effort. The authors looked at what variables have an effect on students explaining positive or negative task outcomes and how do students look at future tasks given past performance. When students consider task outcome a success, there is a higher likelihood that the student will ascribe this outcome to personal ability. They will look to future tasks with the same or slightly higher subjective competence.

When students who score high on subjective competence consider a task outcome as a failure, they do not accept lack of ability as the answer. Rather they ascibe the outcome as a lack of effort, preserving self-image and ego. As a corollary to this, students with high self-concept, when confronted with a task failure, tended to reduce the task relevance - a response that also protected self-worth. It is only when a student cannot ascribe failure to lack of effort does self-image begin to change and subjective competence begins to change in regards to future tasks.

Conclusion
Students who are confronted with a learning task use resources to adapt to the task, how to estimate their chance of success, and how much effort they will invest in the task. The authors showed that former learning experiences have an effect on perceived competence and amount of effort to invest in a future task. They showed ego protecting behaviors by students when confronted with failure of tasks, including lack of effort or reduced task relevance. Causal attributions have an effect on subsequent tasks.

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effort group survey

The Effort Group has put together a SHORT survey we would like you to participate in. Please click on the link below. Thanks.

short survey for effort group

Effort and Ability: the development of theory

This video presentation examines effort and ability as they relate to motivation theory. The development, refinement, and elaboration among theories is presented in a chronological order beginning with Rotter's 1966 Theory of Social Learning. The video culminates with Folmer et al. (2007) describing considerations for teachers, practitioners, and investigators when applying motivational theories to younger children.

The movie is about 11 minutes long and is a 72 Mb download. You'll need to use QuickTime to view the movie.

effort and ability movie download

Bernard Weiner Responds

Dr. Bernard Weiner from UCLA provided a chapter from a handbook (Dweck, 2005) to discuss.

weiner 2005 chapter download

The responses from the Effort group and Dr. Weiner. Please feel free to leave additional comments and observations for the Effort group using the commenting feature.

Synthesized Q & A
Thank you all for your contributions to this conversation. We took the questions and tried to merge them into combination questions to include as many as possible. Below are the synthesized questions, each followed by Dr. Weiner's responses. Dr. Weiner comments, "All good questions, and tough. Do convey to your professor my appreciation of your close reading and the grade of A. I will be distressed if you do not all receive top grades'" See that, effort yields rewards, at least from virtual professors!

Question 1
We wanted more information on resistance to social/peer pressure. Specifically how many Asian American students persist in being hard- working in spite of negative social consequences and how other students cave in to those consequences and become work-avoidant. What factors determine how students respond to social pressures?

Question 2
What are the attributes of the students who resist social and peer pressure? How do students who are more susceptible become more resistant?

Response to Questions 1 and 2
I am afraid I cannot give expert answers to Questions #1 and #2 because they are beyond my knowledge and outside the domain of attribution theory. But remember that social norms pertain to one's social group, so Asians do not have negative consequences because of working hard. Quite the contrary. I once wanted to do an experiment related to that question, but dealing with other rather than self perception. It went something as follows. An Asian student (give an appropriate name) does nothing but study and does well in school. How much do you admire this person? Would you want him or her as a friend? How highly would you evaluate this person? etc. Then have a second condition the same but with an African-American student. I am sure that student would be admired more, you would more want as a friend, evaluated higher, etc because in this case the effort expenditure is perceived as non-normative and self-generated, rather than normative and culturally-driven. But what determines resistence to social pressure, and who is best able to resist, are questions I cannot answer.

Question 3
Does Abramson's use of your model of Attribution Theory change your use or perception of it, specifically, his addition of global and specific and less focus on controllability.

Question 3 Response
I am better able to address Question #3. They postulate globality as a fourth causal dimension or property. On the one hand, that makes intuitive sense and is quite reasonable. It is important to capture the idea of attributional generality across situations, just as the stability dimension captures generality over time. But I have never fully embraced globality. There are a few inter-related reasons for this. First, in empirical studies is does not emerge as a factor. Imagine that I ask you to sort causes into piles and I give aptitude, effort, objective task difficulty and luck. You start with locus and say ability and effort are internal, task difficulty and luck external. Then you might then say that aptitude and task difficulty remain the same, but effort and luck vary over time (stability), or that you can control effort but not the others. But how would you group according to globality (which is not elicited as a grouping category anyway). There is great disparity between people in answering, for example, if one is lucky in one situation will he or she be lucky (or unlucky) in another. So, for these reasons I have not fully incorporated globality. But I accept that is certain situations other properties of causality other than my three are important. For example, it may be that for some reasons in grouping the causes of success at sports, there is a grouping of physical versus mental causes. And in other settings, still other properties emerge. But so far, in my experience, locus, stability, and controllability are the only ones of sure globality (ugh).

Question 4
If providing sympathy and pity to failure is positive, but decreases motivation, what do we do? Do we not show sympathy to increase motivation? (Is this like tough love?) is there a balance point that the teacher can achieve between sympathy, disappointment and anger and can this balance point become a skill that can be taught? Thus allowing teachers to support and motivate at the same time?

Question 4 Response
Attribution life consists of many double-edged swords. Sympathy is a positive emotion, conveys concern and potential help, but also communicates lack of ability. Anger is a negative emotion, conveys potential punishment, but also communicates that the person "could" and "should" have done (or not done) something, so it in a sense empowers the receiver. So when should each be given and withheld?? That is not possible for me to answer. Great athletic coaches, and probably teachers as well, intuit or sense when to communicate what. From my perspective and knowledge, what is important is to understand the attributional messages of emotions. That should be part of teacher training. How to become a great teacher is something I wish I knew. A related issue is when to communicate low ability if the person really cannot. In this case, I would stress high task difficulty so that self-esteem is maintained. Similarly, when communicating anger, I would make sure it is linked to the act and not the person -- you, a capable and good person, did a bad thing. This has the same properties as a confession -- I am a good person who did a bad act. Forgive me because I will make amends.

Question 5
In reference to your section in this chapter on anger. What role do the perceptions of teachers and parents play in the anger students experience when they have not met the competence level that they were expected to achieve? Can the value judgement placed on students perceived ability to succeed hinder their persistance, thus affecting their motivation to keep "trying"? Is this at all related to students' self-efficacy in contrast with their perceived efficacy?

Question 5 Response
I am a bit unclear by what you meant here. First, anger never follows a lack of competence judgment, but a lack of trying. Perhaps by competence you meant lack of learning due to low effort. Certainly if students fail when judged to have high ability, then the most salient inference is lack of effort, followed by anger. If perceived ability is low, then in terms of reactions from others this is a great state -- if they succeed, they are especially rewarded because of an extra effort perception, if they fail they are not punished because low aptitude is uncontrollable. But again we have double-edges, for the communication of low ability influences self-perception of low ability, and this could indeed lower motivation because of lack of hope for success. Not sure I answered your question.

Question 6
What if no emotion is communicated in the failing the test scenario? What if, instead, the other person encourages metagcognition by asking "What was in the way of your doing better on the test?" or "What can you do differently to prepare for the next test as a result of this experience?

Question 6 Response
Uninvolved observers will not experience much emotion. If you three do well (or fail), I am unlikely to experience great happiness or distress (sorry). So it is typical of the uninvolved to react with information rather than with emotion. Now what if the involved do not experience emotion? You, my children, fail because you refused to study. The theory states that anger follows from this attribution (much as the night follows from the day). There are built in thinking-feeling relations. I think lack of anger from someone involved given failure will communicate low ability.

Folmer et al. (2008)

Folmer, A., Cole, D. A., Sigal, A. B., Benbow, L. D., Satterwhite, L. F., Swygert, K. E., & Ciesla, J. A. (2008). Age-related changes in children’s understanding of effort and ability: Implications for attribution theory and motivation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 99, 114-134.

Choice of Study
Children’s understanding of the relationship between effort and ability changes with age. Generally speaking, younger children believe there is a direct correlation between ability and effort in that smart students are hard workers and not-so-smart students do not work hard enough. Adolescents come to view ability and effort as reciprocal. They believe smart children do not need to apply great amounts of effort and students who need to work hard must have less ability. Nicholls (1978) and Nicholls and Miller (1984) described four age-related levels of children’s understanding of the distinction and relationship between effort and ability. At Level 1 (ages 5-6), ability and effort are not differentiated. The relation of either factor to an outcome is unclear. At Level 2 (ages 7-9 years) children attribute outcomes to the level of effort expended. Successful outcomes are attributed to great effort and unsuccessful outcomes are attributed to minimal effort. At Level 3 (ages 10-11) children begin to distinguish between ability and effort but attribution of either factor to an outcome is inconsistent. At Level 4 (ages 12 and above) children clearly understand the distinction between ability and effort. Ability is believed to limit the effects of effort.

Understanding children’s age-related conceptualizations of effort and ability is critical for teachers, especially those working with younger students. Between the ages of 7-9 years, students believe that effort is the primary factor affecting an outcome. As such, motivation is enhanced. Negative outcomes do not necessarily pose a personal threat or anxiety for the individual. However, ten and eleven year old students are at a particularly important and vulnerable stage of development. At this age, students begin to distinguish ability and effort and inconsistently attribute these factors to outcomes. If a student consistently attributes negative outcomes to low ability, motivation can be diminished. Other problems such as learned helplessness and depression may emerge.

Problem
The goals of this study were threefold. The first goal was to replicate and extend prior research that revealed a developmental, age-related progression of children’s understanding of effort and ability (Nicholls, 1978; Nicholls & Miller, 1984). The first hypothesis was that children’s understanding of effort/ability as causes of negative outcomes would show an age-related developmental progression similar to those reported for positive outcomes. The second goal was to compare children’s understanding in situations involving themselves with situations involving others. The hypothesis was that children would apply a less mature conceptualization when the task involved their own performance as a matter of self-protection. The final goal generated three hypotheses. The first was that relation of ability and effort would vary as a function of age.

Specifically, high effort followed by poor outcomes would result in greater implication for low-ability inferences, as children grew older. The second hypothesis was that this high effort/poor outcome situation would represent greater personal threat and have stronger affective and motivational consequences for older children. The final hypothesis was that older children would be more likely to attribute a negative outcome/high effort situation to ability.

Method
A total of 166 students from two public elementary schools and one public middle school were included in the study. Students were randomly assigned to either a high-effort or low-effort condition. The study was divided into two parts. In Part 1, participants individually completed puzzle tasks during which they were prompted to either use high or low levels of effort. Participants then watched videos of a student actor under similar conditions. Fictitious results were given in both scenarios and participants were asked to evaluate their own performance as well as the actors in the videos. In Part 2 participants watched a second video of two actors completing a math worksheet. Each actor exerted either high or low levels of effort. Following each video participants responded to a series of questions designed to measure affect, motivation, effort/ability level, and causal attributions/perceived controllability.

Results
The results of the study supported the first hypothesis in that age was significantly and positively related to estimates of Nicholls’s effort/ability level whether students were explaining their own performance or the performance of others. The second hypothesis was rejected in that students did not apply significantly less mature conceptualizations of effort/ability for their own poor performance as opposed to the performance of others.

Support for hypothesis 3a was found in that age was significantly negatively correlated inquiries of inferences about ability and future performance. Younger children perceived the high-effort actor as smarter than the low-effort actor and that the high-effort actor would do better in a future performance. This association of effort with ability diminished at older age levels. By age 15, children perceived high effort/low outcome implied lower ability. Hypothesis 3b focused on developmental changes in affect and motivation. It was hypothesized that high effort followed by negative outcome would result in greater personal threat and decreased motivation. The results of the study indicated that older children acknowledge more anger about poor performance than do younger children. Regarding motivation, younger children essentially showed no association between effort and motivation. The final hypothesis was that older children would be more likely to attribute high effort/negative outcome to ability-related causes. Partial support for this hypothesis was found in that age positively correlated with the tendency to attribute failure to stable and global causes but not to internal causes.

Discussion and Conclusion
Age was significantly related to children’s understanding of the reciprocal relation of effort and ability in situations involving negative outcomes. This finding is of particular importance because of the problematic outcomes, including depression and learned helplessness that can result from low ability inferences and self-perceptions. If children’s ability judgments change with age then teachers, practitioners, and investigators need to carefully consider these stages of development when applying motivational theories to young children.

Critique
The authors included several shortcomings to the study and suggested avenues for future research. Of the suggestions given, two seemed particularly worth mentioning. The authors suggested using factors other than age as a proxy for development. Changes in children’s understanding of ability and effort are more likely related to a combination of several factors including socialization, cognitive development, intelligence, and personality. The second suggestion is that observational methods for collecting data on affective responses may be more valid than the interview method with young children. This method may be less susceptible to social desirability response bias.

folmer et al. article download