This study examined the role that attributional style played in the academic
achievement and school performance of a sample of 150 black primary school learners
in grades 5 and 6 in an inner city school in the Johannesburg area. The Children’s
Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ, 1984) was administered to determine the
attributional styles. The questionnaire was comprised of 10 subscales and from this an
overall level of optimism or pessimism was obtained. The academic achievement of the
learners was measured by obtaining the end of year academic results of 1997 and 1998
from the mark schedules of each teacher. The results did not reveal significant
correlations between attributional styles and academic achievement. This was
contradictory to the existing literature. It appears that, in this disadvantaged group in
South Africa, it is not attributional style that impacts upon academic achievement and
school performance. However it appears that learned helplessness in terms of Seligman
and Maier’s (1967) original formulation, rather than attributional style as in the
reformulated theory of Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale (1978) may impact upon
academic achievement in this community.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/14708 |
| Date | 23 May 2014 |
| Creators | Mayer, Aliza |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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