| The purposes of this study were to investigate the development of university students' attributions for their perceived success and failure in second language reading and to clarify the relationship between the learners' reading proficiency levels and their attributions. The conceptual framework draws on attribution theory (Weiner, 1979, 1983, 1986).; Two hundred and sixty-nine Japanese female university students, whose second language proficiency ranged from low to intermediate, participated in this study. They had been studying English as a foreign language for more than six years in the formal education system. Two hundred-fifty one (93%) of the participants, who indicated that they did not read English texts well, completed a questionnaire asking about the causes of their perceived failure. The results were factor analyzed, and five factors were found: environment (“I don't like my reading teacher,” “The class atmosphere is bad”); ability (“I don't have knowledge of the grammar,” “I don't have the necessary learning strategies”); text difficulty (“The vocabulary in the text is too difficult for me,” “The organization of the text is too difficult for me”); effort (“I am not in the mood to do it,” “I don't use a dictionary”); and task orientation (“The content of the text is not interesting,” “I don't like the genre of the text.”). However, a regression analysis found that these five factors accounted for only 8% of the variance in the learners' reading proficiency level. A profile analysis showed that different proficiency groups displayed different patterns of attribution. There was a significant difference in both ability and effort attributions between the high and low groups (p < .001).; The finding that high and low proficiency groups showed different patterns of attribution implies a need for instruction adapted to learners' level of proficiency. Teachers should be careful in teaching, in particular, lower proficiency learners. Because low-proficiency learners attribute their failure to lack of ability or effort, teachers need to help those learners feel more confident in their reading ability by providing them with a carefully prepared reading curriculum. Teachers should use learning activities that provide reasonable challenges. |
