Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine three questions as follows: (i) how junior high school pupils perceive the causation of academic achievements,(ii) what relationships are observed among the perceived factors of causal attribution,(iii) whether it is possible to predict actual academic achievements and their self evaluation in terms of causal attribution.
The present investigation was carried out, taking account of four factors of causal attribution theoretically classified from locus of control and stability dimensions on the basis of Weiner's model. These were effort, ability, teacher and luck. A questionnaire, called Locus of Control in Academic Achievement Test, was made to assess the degree of the perceived relationships between causal factors and academic achievement and the level of self evaluation of academic achievements in eight school subjects from four different fields. This test was administered to 91 junior high school boys and 80 junior high school girls. The standard score of an achievement test was used as index of actual academic achievements.
The main findings were as follows:
1. Effort factor was dominant particularly in Mathematics, English and Japanese language. On the other hand, ability factor was relatively dominant in Music, Physical education and Arts. Luck factor Was not highly thought of in all school subjects.
2. Most of correlation coefficients between effort and ability factors, which were internal in the dimension of locus of control, were significant as expected. This is in accordance with Weiner's two dimensional models. However, effort factor was independent of luck factor. This is in conflict with Weiner's model, which tells that both effort and luck are the unstable factors on the stability dimension. There was a sex difference with regard to teacher factor: the factor positively related to it, was ability factor in boys, but effort factor in the case of girls.
3. It was not confirmed enough that the factors of causal attribution could predict actual academic achievements and their self evaluation, i. e. significant partial regression coefficients were not shown except in the effort factor by means of the multiple regression analysis. On the contrary, it would be better to say that these factors were probably effective to explain the direction of discrepancy between self evaluation and actual academic achievements, which in fact would mean easy or severe self evaluation. pupils who evaluate themselves severely tended to attribute the cause of academic achievements to effort factor. Conversely, pupils who evaluate themselves easily tended to take a serious view of ability, teacher and luck as causal attributions of academic achievements.
