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Abstract

Perceived control over school performances is often assessed by means of attributions of performance to "controllable" or "non-controllable" causes. We assume that this assessment method is not reliable, because it is not possible to make a general distinction between controllable and non-controllable causes. Both developmental level and experience influence the perceived controllability of the causes. Also external attributions may be perceived as controllable. Our hypotheses are: (1) that children frequently perceive failures caused by "lack of competence", "task difficulty", and "insufficient explanation by the teacher" as controllable; and (2) that children with problems in learning and concentration perceive failures caused by "effort" as non-improvable more often than control children. Both hypotheses are confirmed. This implies that assessing perceived control by assessing attributions for school performances is not a reliable method. In addition, attribution-training should not focus merely on increasing the rate of attributions to "controllable" causes, but also on the translation of these "controllable" attributions to concrete behaviour.

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Attributions and Perceived Control over School Failure in Handicapped and Non-handicapped Children

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