Causal Attributions as Correlates of Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between causal attributions and academic achievement. Weiner’s Model of Achievement Attribution guided this research. Five-hundred and eighty-five students (315 males, 270 females) participated in the study. The participants completed the Multidimensional Multiattributional Causality Scale (MMCS) while academic achievement was obtained from the participants’ academic records. Majority of the students attributed both success and failure to internal, uncontrollable, and unstable attributions. The results indicated that causal attributions were significantly correlated to academic achievement. Taking into account that students can form maladaptive causal attributions, the study made recommendations to the stakeholders on intervention measures.