Attributions
What is it about?
Children can experience desirable but also undesirable outcomes such as success and failure. But what do they attribute their outcomes to? Attributions are perceived causes that individuals select or construct for events in their lives. The attribution theory is a psychological concept about how people explain the causes of an event or behavior. When children experience success or failure they can attribute the cause to something specific which in turn can lead to increased or decreased motivational behavior. Therefore, the child's understanding of the causes of past events influences their future actions. The most important factors affecting attributions are ability, task difficulty, effort and luck, but also the parent's attitudes. Therefore, the children's achievement can be attributed to these factors (seen in the table). Furthermore, attributions are classified along three causal dimensions of behavior, which are locus of control (internal: ability, effort vs. external: luck, task difficulty), stability (do causes change over time?) or controllability (can causes be controlled?). Children who have an internal locus of control will more often attribute their success and failure to their ability and effort, while those with an external control will more often attribute their success and failure to task difficulty and luck. Children are affected by their environmental factors and personal experiences. Whatever the child perceives as being the cause of the event will affect their future motivation towards similar tasks. This means that the perceptions and judgements parents make of their child and their actions are influenced by the assumptions that parents make. And with talking about/ to the child or showing a particular behavior parents influence their child.
So which influence have attributions on the educational process?
Children's attributions are derived not only from themselves but also are influenced through interactions with teachers, parents and peers. External attributions, or also called situational attributions, are defined as ”blaming an outside factor as the cause of an event” (Grinnell, 2016). Parental beliefs, your beliefs concerning your child’s development and academic abilities influence your child’s behavior and outcomes. Such causal attributions are also important because the way you as a parent interpret the causes of your child’s outcomes influences the way in which you guide and tutor your child at home. In addition, your parents’ child-related causal attributions are likely to affect your behavior towards your child and therefore the way in which your child develops.
So which influence have attributions on the educational process?
Children's attributions are derived not only from themselves but also are influenced through interactions with teachers, parents and peers. External attributions, or also called situational attributions, are defined as ”blaming an outside factor as the cause of an event” (Grinnell, 2016). Parental beliefs, your beliefs concerning your child’s development and academic abilities influence your child’s behavior and outcomes. Such causal attributions are also important because the way you as a parent interpret the causes of your child’s outcomes influences the way in which you guide and tutor your child at home. In addition, your parents’ child-related causal attributions are likely to affect your behavior towards your child and therefore the way in which your child develops.
Tips: How to apply in everyday life?
And because you as a parent can have such a great impact on your child, it is important for you to know what requires special attention. One aspect is that your child should have positive external attributions about your attitudes such as “my parents help me when I have trouble” or “they always stand behind me.” Here are some tips to achieve that goal:
You, as a parent, should...
BUT: An overemphasis on ability could lead to overconfidence and failure on a task!
You, as a parent, should...
- ... emphasize the importance of effort for achieving goals.
- ... project your child’s success to internal factors such as ability or effort, because that leads to increased achievement by the children.
- ... generally want to avoid your child attributing failure to lack of ability.
- ... assist your child by explicitly discussing different types of attributions and which are best and helpful for the child.
F.ex. that their success is attributed to internal causes such as ability or effort rather than to luck. - ... only help your child when it asks for it. Do not offer unsolicited help.
The child’s attributions are positively or negatively affected and influenced by the explicit feedback from you as parents. Through offering
more subtle feedback like unsolicited help, you cause negative attributions to your child, such as low ability. Furthermore, this will increase
the likelihood that your child will attribute failure to lack of ability. - ... assist your child in identifying the point where improvement is needed (e.g., better strategies) and target that as an attribution.
Here, specific feedback is important! - ... pay attention that your child won't constantly experience failure and punishment, otherwise they eventually become passive and unmotivated.
Therefore, is your child a successful learner, they probably know that they have high abilities, but would also emphasize the importance of effort.
BUT: An overemphasis on ability could lead to overconfidence and failure on a task!
Goals
In paying attention to all these mentioned aspects you have a great impact on how your child develops and to what they attribute their behavior. The main goal is that your child develops positive external attributions about your attitudes such as “my parents help me when I have trouble” or “they always stand behind me.” As a result, your child will tend to attribute their success and failure to internal and controllable factors such as effort and strategy use, what more successful learners do. However, you generally want to avoid your child attributing their failures to lack of ability .
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