Students from three South African universities, representing three ethnic groups, gave their own explanations of their perceived success or failure on a class test, and rated the importance of causal attributions derived from previous studies. Effort, academic skills, and understanding emerged as important explanations of success or failure on the open-ended section of the questionnaire. Further analyses failed to support Weiner's (1979) categorization of attributions in terms of stability, locus, and control. Main effects occurred for success/failure rating, sex, and ethnic group in a number of the attributions.
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