Abstract
What determines whether students will spontaneously employ personal control in meaningfulness? Is it related to attributional assignment and/or divergent thinking? 149 participants were undergraduate majors in education, enrolled in human development and learning. Students randomly received one of three 15-item lists: nonsense syllables, unrelated words, or related words. A questionnaire related to attributional assignment for success and failure plus four divergent thinking tasks was given. Attributions significantly predicted Fluency, Flexibility, and/or Originality scores as a function of the meaningfulness of the list. Methodological limitations are addressed. Implications are that we can encourage students to bring personal meaning to tasks low in meaning to increase retention.
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