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Students' employment of meaning through cognitive strategies in a retention task was explored in terms of attributional assignment and/or divergent thinking. Students were randomly assigned to either a list of nonsense syllables or nonrelated words. Attributional assignment was measured by Lefcourt's Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scales (MMCS-IV); divergent thinking was measured by Guilford's tests of Fluency, Flexibility, and Originality. A questionnaire assessing students' beliefs regarding success and failure was also administered. No relationship was found among attributional assignment as measured by the MMCS-IV, divergent thinking, and retention. Strategy use was not related to retention. Students' attributional beliefs regarding failure were predictive of retention for the nonsense syllables. Discussion suggests the need to distinguish between tactic and strategy through analysis of metacognitive processes. Interpretation of the results may indicate that the divergent-thinking measures were not sensitive enough and/or the retention task did not require these divergent-thinking skills.This study attempted to continue the examination of strategies that students use in order to retain material that is low in meaningfulness. Results from an earlier study (Chandler & Shoup, 1991) have indicated that some measures of divergent thinking (Guilford & Christensen, 1970) are related to increased ability to retain a list of unrelated words. These findings possibly suggest that persons who utilize divergent-thinking skills (e.g., fluency, flexibility, and originality) are able to construct or generate meaning for themselves out of material presented to them in order to be more successful in item retention.According to Wittrock's (1978) generative model, cognitive learning occurs when learners construct or generate meaning for themselves out of what is presented to them. In the case of remembering material that is lacking in meaningfulness, such as nonsense syllables, a strategy may be employed for more efficient retention. It is hypothesized that students who use a strategy that employs their own personal meaningfulness to a retention task are students who are taking charge and perceiving control of the learning situation. It is expected that these students will be internal in terms of locus of causality.According t o Weiner's attributional theory (Weiner, 1979), students exhibiting a greater internal locus of causality are more likely to attribute successful outcomes to such elements as ability and effort (internal causation). Therefore, it is hypothesized that students who exhibit greater internal locus of causality will be more likely to employ a mediating strategy in retaining material.Attributional preference may predict who is likely to try mediation strategies, but divergent-thinking skills may indicate who is successful. Therefore, it is expected that divergent thinkers, in comparison to nondivergent thinkers, will recall more items from a nonsense syllable list and from a nonrelated word list...