“…There is research evidence that causal attributions to performance in academic tasks have significant impact on the student's expectations for subsequent success, achievement behaviour, and emotional reactions (Weiner, 1992). Within the domain of achievement behaviour, attribution of academic outcomes has been examined in terms of four primary causes: ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty (Bar-Tal & Darom, 1979;Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest & Rosenbaum, 1971). While data from various studies have substantiated the notion that these four primary causes are the most common attributions in a variety of situations (e.g., Frieze & Snyder, 1980), other 'causes' such as other people (teachers, students), mood, fatigue, illness, personality, physical appearance, home environment, value of the outcome, and the behaviour of others have been cited as important (Cooper & Good, 1983;Frieze, Francis & Hanusa, 1983;Vispoel & Austin, 1991).…”