Attributions and Perceived Control over School Failure in Handicapped and Non-handicapped Children

Perceived control over school performances is often assessed by means of attributions of performance to ''controllable'' or ''non-controllable'' causes. We assume that this assessment method is not reliable, because it is not possible to make a general distinction between controllable and non-controllable causes. Both developmental level and experience influence the perceived controllability of the causes. Also external attributions may be perceived as controllable. Our hypotheses are: (1) that children frequently perceive failures caused by ''lack of competence'', ''task difficulty'', and ''insufficient explanation by the teacher'' as controllable; and (2) that children with problems in learning and concentration perceive failures caused by ''effort'' as non-improvable more often than control children. Both hypotheses are confirmed. This implies that assessing perceived control by assessing attributions for school performances is not a reliable method. In addition, attribution-training should not focus merely on increasing the rate of attributions to ''controllable'' causes, but also on the translation of these ''controllable'' attributions to concrete behaviour.