Beyond reading strategies: An investigation of the relationship between academic attributions, achievement motivation and metacognition

The relationship between academic attributions, achievement motivation, metacognitive knowledge about reading and strategic reading performance was examined for normally-achieving students (NA) and students with learning disabilities (LD).;Metacognitive knowledge was positively correlated with internal academic attributions and negatively correlated with external reading attributions and surface achievement approach. In addition, internal academic attributions were positively correlated with internal reading attributions and external reading attributions were positively correlated with surface approach. The NA-LD classification accounted for the greatest variance in metacognitive knowledge. However, the belief variables together (academic attributions, reading attributions, achievement motivation) accounted for greater variance in metacognitive knowledge.;The NA students displayed significantly greater metacognitive knowledge and internal academic attributions, as well as fewer external reading attributions, in comparison to the LD group. The sample was then regrouped into high metacognitive knowledge (HM) and low metacognitive knowledge (LM). The HM students endorsed significantly greater internal academic attributions and significantly less surface approach than the LM students.;Strategic reading performance was then examined in four groups of students; NA-HM, NA-LM, LD-HM and LD-LM. When provided passages at their word-recognition level, all groups performed equally well on an error-detection task and displayed similar patterns of strategic responses and conceptual statements. During reading, NA-HM and LD-HM students commented more on attempts to make sense of the text and interpreted their reading in terms of thoughts. By contrast, the NA-LM and LD-LM groups focused on summarizing the text and interpreted their reading in terms of actions. After reading, the NA-HM and NA-LM students tended to discuss meaning-making attempts. By contrast, the LD-HM and LD-LM students appeared to relate the text to personal perspectives. In addition, the LD-LM students seemed to interpret their reading in terms of actions, whereas the other three groups tended to discuss thoughts.;The results suggest an interactive relationship between academic attributions, achievement motivation, metacognitive knowledge about reading and strategic reading performance. Further, differences in the belief variables appear to relate to differences in metacognitive knowledge and strategic reading performance both within and outside the a priori distinctions of normally-achieving and learning disabled. Implications for research and practice are discussed.