Research Digest Attribution Theory and Learner Motivation: Can Students Be Guided Towards Making More Adaptive Causal Attributions?

Attribution theory investigates the ways in which people seek causal explanations for events in their lives, other people’s behaviour or their own behaviour. Such lay explanations are derived from a process of causal attribution whereby individuals attribute outcomes, events or behaviours to particular causes. These are the causes as perceived by the individual and can have significant psychological and behavioural consequences, regardless of their accuracy (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996). For the past four decades, attributions have been researched in a wide range of psychological disciplines: social, educational, experimental, clinical, organisational and motivational (Försterling, 2001). The topic of attributions in foreign or second language learning is a relatively unexplored area, though in recent years, the role of attributions in language learning motivation has increasingly bee