Ability versus effort attributional feedback: Differential effects on self-efficacy and achievement.

This experiment explored the effects of ability and effort attributional feedback given during subtraction competency development on children's perceived self-efficacy and achievement.Children who were deficient in subtraction skills received training on subtraction operations and engaged in problem solving, during which they periodically received ability attributional feedback for their progress, effort feedback, ability + effort feedback, or no attributional feedback.Children given only ability feedback demonstrated the highest subtraction skill and self-efficacy; the effort and ability + effort conditions did not differ, but each outperformed the no-feedback condition.Future research should examine in greater detail how children process attributional information and its effects on achievement outcomes. Article:According to Bandura's theory of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977(Bandura, , 1981(Bandura, , 1982)), different treatments change behavior in part by creating and strengthening percepts of self-efficacy.Self-efficacy refers to judgments of how well one can organize and implement actions in specific situations that may contain ambiguous, unpredictable, and possibly stressful elements.Self-efficacy is hypothesized to affect choice of activities, effort expenditure, and perseverance in the face of difficulties.Efficacy information is conveyed through performance attainments, socially comparative vicarious means, social persuasion, and physiological indexes.Although actual performances provide the most reliable efficacy information, efficacy judgments are not mere reflections of those performances.Efficacy appraisal is an inferential process that involves weighting the relative contributions of many factors, such as self-perceptions of ability, task difficulty, effort expended, amount of external aid received, situational circumstances under which the performances occurred, and temporal pattern of successes and failures (Bandura, 1981).In the self-efficacy framework, attributional variables constitute an important source of efficacy information and influence performance primarily through their intervening effects on efficacy expectations.Attributional theories of behavior postulate that individuals make causal ascriptions for the outcomes of' their actions (Heider, 1958;Kelley, 1967;Kelley & Michela, 1980).In achievement contexts, outcomes often are attributed to ability, effort, task difficulty, or luck (Frieze, 1980;Weiner, 1979;Weiner et al., 1971).Future expectancies of success and failure in part depend upon ascriptions for prior outcomes (Weiner, 1977(Weiner, , 1979)).If one believes that the conditions surrounding the task will remain much the same, attributions to relatively stable causes-such as ability or task difficulty--should result in future expectancies of similar outcomes, whereas attributions to the more unstable causes of effort or luck may lead to expectancy shifts (Frieze, 1980;Weiner, 1979).A number of research studies have at-tempted to modify children's achievement behaviors by providing effort attributional feedback for their performances (Andrews & Debus, 1978;Chapin & Dyck, 1976;Dweck, 1975;Medway & Venino, 1982;Schunk, 1982).Because effort presumably is under volitional control, ascribing past failures to insufficient effort should have motivational effects and lead to greater task persistence and a higher performance level.In support of this idea, Dweck (1975) had learned-helpless children solve arithmetic problems over trials.Children either always succeeded or occasionally failed to solve a criterion number of problems.When they failed, children were given effort attributional feedback by being told that they should