Investigating the Effects of Attributional Retraining Procedures on High School Students’ Foreign Language Causal Attributions and their Foreign Language Achievement

Year 2018, Volume: 8 Issue: 2, 28 - 44, 30.06.2018

Mohammad Hadi Mahmoodi Mehdi Doosti

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of attributional retraining techniques on high
school students’ foreign language causal attributions and foreign language
achievement. To determine the participants’ initial causal attributions, the Revised
Causal Dimension Scale (CDS-II) (McAuley et al. 1992) was distributed among 327
Iranian high school students shortly after they had taken their first English
achievement test. Participants were required to rate their perceived success or failure
by reflecting on their performance on the test based on the dimensions of the CDS-II.
Subsequently, participants in the experimental group received attributional
treatments in videotape format followed by group discussions. At the end of the
semester, the participants in both groups took a final English language achievement
test and the CDS-II again. The findings showed that attribution retraining techniques
are effective in changing the participants’ causal attributions in the predicted
direction and improving their performance on foreign language achievement tests. 

Keywords

Attribution Theory, Attributional Retraining, Foreign Language Achievement, High School Students, English as a Foreign Language

References

• Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(3), 261- 271.