CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS ABOUT POORLY PERFORMING PUPILS

This study was conducted to examine the belief of teachers, mothers and students regarding reasons why certain children were performing poorly.<BR>In the first study, we mabe a new method designated as a Case Rating Scale, and examined testretest reliability and internal consistency of the scale. The Case Rating Scale consisted of 6 different fictious scenarios describing poorly performing pupils. Reading each scenario, subject were requested to answer three kinds of questions. First, they rated the extent to which the poorly performing pupils were due to each of 11 causal factors such as pupil's poor effort and teacher's unskillful teaching method etc. Second, subjects assigned the magnitude of possibility for the pupils to show a better school record in the future. Third, subjects were questioned about guidance of these pupils from two points of views; (i) who is appropiriate as a person guiding the pupils,(ii) what rate of praise and criticism should be taken.<BR>Subjects were 141 students in an educational university and a nurse's college. The Case Rating Scale was administered to them twice at an interval of two weeks.<BR>The results indicated that both test-retest reliability and internal consistency of the subscales in the Case Rating Scale were adequate except the subscale composed of the third question (i) mentioned above. Therefore, we concluded, though only the third question (i) was to be excluded, the Case Rating Scale was reliable enough to investigate causal attributions.<BR>The purpose of the second study was to make clear the followings: (1) the differenec in causal attributions among teachers, mothers and students,(2) the relation between causal attributions and possibility for the pupil to show a better school record, and (3) the relation between causal attributions and the rate of praise and criticism. Subjects were 114 teachers, 100 mothers and 117 students. Main results were as follows.<BR>1. The teachers held lack of an ability factor of pupils as being more responsible for poor performance than other subjects. On the other hand, teacher's unskillful teaching method was viewed as much less of a factor determining poor performance. These results showing by the teachers supported the self-serving bias.<BR>2. The mothers attached more importance to attrbution for teacher's unskillful teaching method than the teachers. This result was in accordance with the self-serving bias as above. But the unexpected result was shown that they attributed the cause more intensely to their own factors.<BR>3. The multiple discriminant analysis was conducted to clarify furthermore the difference among three kinds of subjects. For the first discriminant function which made clear the difference between the mother group and the student group, the most important causal factors were parents' ill discipline for children and unluck. The second discriminant function seemed to mean controllable vs. uncontrollable attribution, and discriminated mainly between the mother group and the teacher group.<BR>4. From the multiple regression analysis, it was found in the teacher group and the student group that the extent of attribution to the lack of an ability of pupils could predict the magnitude of impossibility for the pupils to show a better school record in the future, but the same result was not shown in the mother group.<BR>5. The relation between causal attributions and the rate of praise and criticism was obscure in all groups.<BR>In discussion, we considered the following items: the Case Rating Scale, teachers' learned helplessness for the poorly performing pupil, sampling errors, the difficulty to measure how to guide the pupils etc.