The purposes of this study were to determine the extent to which self-confidence in mathematics could be explained from motivation/attribution variables and to investigate whether students make attributions for their successes and failures in mathematics. Variables measured by means of existing self-report scales were self-confidence in learning mathematics and attributional style. Four self-report scales were developed for this study to measure other motivational variables within the content domain of mathematics. All measures were completed by 489 seventh-grade students. Results indicated that significant portions of the variance in self-confidence scores could be explained from the other variables. Significant, positive intercorrelations among all variables showed that relations among the variables were in the direction expected. Students did, on the average, report thinking about the reasons for their successes and failures in mathematics, and they reported making attributions for failure more often than attributions for success.
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