Student attributions and performance: problems with unfounded optimism?

The present studies aim to assess whether academic performance and attrition of first year university students may be due to the attributional styles of optimism and pessimism as described by Seligman (1991). Since Seligman argues that attributional styles can be learned, the fiscal and developmental implications of the present research could be considerable. However, contrary to the expectations suggested by Seligman’s research, a preliminary pilot study involving a sample of 38 undergraduate students failed to indicate any positive relationships between optimistic explanatory styles and student performance. Indeed, there was some evidence to suggest that poor performance might in fact be associated with overly optimistic attributions based on past successes. The second study, involving a sample of 209 students enrolled in a first year business course, also failed to indicate any correlations between raw marks and any of the eleven attributional style combinations. However, there again was some support for the notion that students who fail might be overly optimistic about their ability to perform academically, and hence of greater interest in this research endeavour than those who pass. To that end it is suggested that future research should aim to validate these results by replicating the methodology employed in the present study using much larger sample frames