Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine causal attributions of success and failure in actual academic performance, with a special focus on strategy attribution. Furthermore, this study will explore how students attribute their academic success or failure and then regulate their learning strategies for future learning. One hundred fifty-four Japanese high school students (97 males, 54 females, and 2 unknown) from the same school participated in the study. Open-ended questions were used to obtain students’ causal attributions for their results on periodic examinations about contemporary society or geography, and the strategies that they develop as they prepare for future examinations. The results were as follows. First, participants were most likely to attribute their examination results to their learning strategies. Second, participants were more likely to attribute their success to study strategies and their failure to effort and examination strategies. Finally, future strategies that were based on causal attribution for failure were more likely to be “Indirect Strategies” that were aimed at managing the students’ environment.
