American Indians, Alaskan Natives and their attributions for success or failure in the classroom

The development of causal belief patterns was examined in relation to the Weiner model of achievement motivation and it was hypothesized that ethnicity would account for attribution patterns distinct to the sample of white and American Indian students. Explorations into attributional patterns of success and failure in the classroom have ignored the presence of aboriginal peoples until now. This investigation was part of a larger study of an urban school system where students in grades four through eleven participated. The sample size consisted of 253 American Indians and Native Alaskans and 541 whites. The Survey of Achievement Responsibility is a 40-item instrument used to assess causal attributions for success and failure in three areas of academic course content: math/science, language arts/social studies, and physical education. The study design represented the multi-factor experiment with repeated measure which used the analysis of variance with repeated measures (ANVAR) for the statistical analysis. The findings did not support the hypotheses that ethnicity would elicit effort and ability patterns along the internal dimension of Weiner's model. Ethnicity was a factor, however, for outcomes along the external dimension for the task difficulty and luck attributions.;The similarities of achievement scores of Indian and white students were associated with the attribution patterns which resulted, and were supportive of findings from other studies. Developmental differences occurred where high school students displayed greater differences between ability and effort attribution than elementary students. Course content accounted for dissimilar patterns and student score differentials for language arts/social studies were larger than for math/science especially at high school levels. Gender differences were found with girls CAT score achievement higher than boys, but girls exhibited dysfunctional patterns for the effort and ability attributions. Ethnic differences were not a factor on the internal dimension of the model, but were displayed on the external dimension for task and luck attributions. Implications for practice include teaching proper attributional responses to assist low achievers, or attribution retraining; provide for balanced curriculum requirements in physical and social science course content; diminish sex stereotyping in school subjects; and increase the awareness of ethnic composition of student bodies and faculties by school boards and administrators.