Learning disabled children's attributions for success and failure. Learning Disability Quarterly

Abstract. These studies examined underachieving and control children's beliefs about the causes of their successes and failures. In Study 1, third- through eighth-grade children were administered a scale measuring locus of control in achieve-ment situations. Results indicated that underachieving children had weaker feelings of internal control over success than the control children. In Study 2, first- through eighth-grade children rated the importance of ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck for success and failure in reading, on puzzles, and in social situations. The children's ratings indicated that underachievers believed lack of effort played less of a role in their failures than did control children. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the achievement behavior of learning disabled children. By definition, learning disabled children are not performing in one or more academic subjects at the level that would be predicted from measures of their intellectual abilit