Attributions to Academic Success and Failure and the Strategies for Dealing With the Examination Situation as Predictors of Academic Success

Abstract

The study was aimed at investigating students’ attributions to academic success/failure and the strategies for dealing with the examination situation as predictors of academic success. Students’ attributions to academic success/failure by internal/external and stable/unstable causes were examined by the Scale of Attributions to Academic Success and Failure. The strategies for dealing with the examination situation (focusing on the problem, focusing on emotions, imagination/distraction, seeking help in the examination situation) were examined by the Scale of Dealing with Examination Situation. The results obtained on the sample of second grade grammar school students (N=204) show that students’ attributions to academic success/failure and the strategies of dealing with the examination situation explain a significant percent of variance in academic success (R²=.210, p=.000). The most important particular predictor is the strategy of dealing with the examination situation by focusing on the problem (β=.244, p=.005). Students’ attributions to failure are more important predictors of academic success than attributions of success. Differences between boys and girls in the patterns of particular predictors of academic success were found. The results point out that it is important to support constructive students’ styles of attributions to academic success/failure and the strategies for dealing with examination situations.

To What Factors do University Students Attribute Their Academic Success?

“…They perceive that the latter is an important condition for achieving scholastic success. As Digia and Zdravkovi (2019) point out, these differences are likely to relate to the parenting habits that characterize women's education unlike men. Finally, the applied regression analysis yielded two differential patterns between men and women.…”

“…It clarifies that this theory alludes to a phenomenon of subjective causality, it is not necessarily about finding the real causes of events. Attribution is a process of causal perception that varies by gender, age, context, group or culture, it is also different depending on whether attribution is made to one's own behavior or other people's (Digia and Zdravkovi, 2019;Weiner, 2010b). However, it is possible to observe that in certain contexts the same causes appear regularly, which allows us to understand with some degree of generality the origins that are attributed to events, this is applicable in the educational field.…”