Self-concept, attribution, and persistence in learning-disabled students

,0”r&ofschod P*y&LqY. Vol 28. pp 153-163. Pcrgamon Press plc. Prmcd tn the USA

0022-4405190~13.00 0 ,990 The Journal of School Psycholqx

1990

+

00 Inc

Self-Concept, Attribution, and Persistence in Learning-Disabled Students Robert Ayres and Eric Cooley Western Oregon

State College

Cory Dunn Linn-Benton

Education

Service District,

Albany,

Oregon

Differences in self-concept, attributions, and teacher-rated persistence were examined in students with learning disabilities (n=49) and in nonhandicapped students (n=57). Discriminant analysis revealed that students with learning disabilities reported lower self-concepts on items related to academic achievement, and were rated by their teachers as less persistent than their normally achieving peers. Students with learning disabilities also reported more stable attributions for failure situations. These findings are consistent with a conceptualization of students with learning disabilities as inactive, or learned-helpless, learners.

There is increasing evidence that learning-disabled (LD) students, in addition to deficient academic achievement, exhibit a variety of maladaptive affective and task-oriented responses in the classroom that can further hinder efforts to improve their academic performance (McKinney & Feagans, 1983; Torgeson & Licht, 1983). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether attribuall thought of as potentially affecting tions, self-concept, and persistence, achievement, differ in samples of learning-disabled and normally achieving students and how these constructs may relate to one another. The theoretical model presented by Weiner (1979), which hypothesizes that the type of attributions a student makes will affect his or her level of motivation, suggests that students

who attribute

failures to lack of ability and suc-

cesses to external factors will be less persistent in their approach to new learning tasks. These students have been labeled learned-helpless. Torgeson and Licht (1983) offer a conceptualization of learning-disabled students that is consistent

with Weiner’s model. They describe

a learning-disabled

student as

an inactive learner, one who does not efficiently use her or his cognitive resources. One component of this conceptualization has to do with the students’ reaction to school failure. Under circumstances of early and repeated failure these students often attribute failure to insufficient ability and can become debilitated by that failure. This debilitation appears as decreased Received October 10, 1988; final revision received June 4, 1989. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Robert R. Ayres, Education, Western Oregon State College, Monmouth, OR 97361.

153

Department

of Special

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154

effort and concentration,

lowered expectations

for future success, and a deteri-

oration of problem-solving strategies. Dweck and Repucci (1973) found that persistence associated with internal and effort attributions,

in failure situations

was

the reverse of those frequently

made by inactive learners. Dweck and her colleagues have identified two attributional styles-labeled learned-helpless (attributing failure to external and uncontrollable events) and mastery-oriented (attributing failure to lack of effort) - and they have used these style categories to accurately predict how students

will cope with failure and how they will handle confusing

material

(Diener & Dweck, 1978; Licht & Dweck, 1984). Research on attributions for academic successes and failures, while not consistent, suggests that learning-disabled students tend to make attributions for their academic

experiences

that are not conducive

to success in the class-

room. For example, learning-disabled students were more likely to attribute academic failures to a lack of ability and less likely to attribute academic successes to ability than were normally achieving students (Aponik & Dembo, 1983; Jacobsen, Lowery, & DuCette, 1986; Pearl, 1982; Stipek & Hoffman, 1980). Learning-disabled whose achievement

students generally report lower self-concepts than peers is satisfactory. Larsen, Parker, and Jorjorian (1973) and

Margalit and Zak (1984), for example, found self-concept deficits in learningdisabled students as compared to normally achieving students. These studies defined self-concept deficits.

as a global construct

Such findings are not consistently

and their data suggest generalized reported,

however. Silverman

and

Zigmond (1983), for example, reported no differences in self-concept between learning-disabled students and both a sample of nonhandicapped students and the normative sample of the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale (Piers, 1984), a general self-concept measure. It has also been proposed that learning-disabled students differ from nonhandicapped peers only in specific aspects of the self-concept (usually related to academic achievement), rather than in a more global sense. Several studies have found differences between these two groups of students only in the area of academic

self-concept

(e.g.,

Carroll,

Friedrich,

& Hund,

1984; Chapman

&

Boersma, 1979; Winne, Woodlands, & Wong, 1982). A third group of studies has found differences both in global and in specific, academic aspects of selfconcept (e.g., Battle, 1979; Rogers & Saklofske, 1985). Cooley and Ayres (1988) reported global differences between the two groups of students; however, an analysis of the Piers-Harris scores indicated that the global scale differences obtained were due to items that referred specifically to academic matters. There is evidence to suggest that attributions and self-concept are related. Cooley and Ayres (1988) found that students with lower self-concepts (both learning-disabled and normally achieving) were more likely to make maladaptive

academic

attributions:

successes due to external

causes and fail-

155

Ayres et al.

ures due to lack of ability. In Weiner’s (1979) would lead to lowered motivation ing tasks. For learning-disabled students, other important issue is whether

model both of these tendencies

and lesser persistence

in the face of challeng-

who have experienced repeated failure, anthey will persist during remedial efforts to

improve their achievement. As the above discussion illustrates, these students seem likely to make attributions that are not conducive to sustained effort, and the academic self-concepts of these children may well mediate their attributions, further lessening their sense of efficacy. One would predict, then, that learning-disabled students are not likely to persist in the face of difficult academic tasks. There is some support for this prediction: Palmer, Drummond, Tollison, and Zinkgraff (1982) compared attributions, expectancies, and persistence in learning-disabled students and normally achieving students and found that the learning-disabled students reported lack of ability as important in failure situations, were less persistent on an academic persistence task, and were rated by their teachers as exhibiting more learned-helpless behavior than their normally achieving peers. Licht, Kistner, Ozkaragoz, Shapiro, and Clausen (1985) reported similar findings, although their results indicated that female learning-disabled students were more likely to attribute failures to insufficient ability than were male learning-disabled students. The learning-disabled students were less persistent than their non-learning-disabled peers, although Licht et al. suggest that this group difference

may be due to the lack of persistence shown by the female students. Friedman and Medway (1987) compared expectancies, attributions, and persistence of male learning-disabled students and a matched sample of normally achieving boys. They found that the learning-disabled students persisted longer than the normally achieving group on an experimental task, a finding in contrast with those reported above. They suggested that the students’ level of achievement needs and task difficulty interacted to influence persistence. They hypothesized that the learning-disabled students persisted on the difficult task, rather than select an easy task as an alternative, because attempting an easier task raised the likelihood that failure on it would suggest a lack of ability. By staying with a difficult task, with little probability of success, there may have been less of a threat to their self-image. The literature suggests, then, that self-concept, attributions, persistence, and perhaps task difficulty interact in a dynamic way. Despite some differences in results, learning-disabled students seem generally to make less adaptive responses to the challenge of academic tasks, and it appears that these responses may further inhibit their performance. The present study is a replication and extension of an earlier study (Cooley & Ayres, 1988) and has as its goals (1) to examine

differences

in self-concept

between learning-disabled

stu-

dents and a normally achieving peer group, looking especially at the students’ academic self-concepts; (2) to investigate any differences in attributions between the two groups; (3) to examine the relationship between self-concept and

The Journal of School Psychology

156

attributions; and (4) to investigate differences ratings of persistence in the classroom.

between the groups in teachers’

METHOD

Subjects All children in selected fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade schools in the Willamette

Valley and Columbia

classes from 10 public

River Gorge regions of Oregon

were given letters asking their parents for consent to participation of their children in the study. Written parental consent was obtained for 106 children, yielding a sample of 49 learning-disabled students (32 males and 17 females; mean age=13.3 years, SD=.83 years) and 57 normally achieving (NA) students (23 males and 34 females; mean age=12.9 years, SD=.33 years). The schools are located in small towns and one medium-sized city; socioeconomic levels are primarily lower middle to middle and local economies are primarily dependent on the timber and wood products industries. The LD students were certified as eligible for special education services according

to statewide criteria requiring

that a discrepancy

be shown between

demonstrated ability and academic achievement. These students had standardized intelligence test scores within normal limits, but academic achievement was significantly below expected levels. They all had individualized educational

plans (IEPs) in effect and were receiving at least 1 hour of resource

room or learning center assistance daily. The NA students were from the same classes as the LD students but were not receiving special education services of any kind. Specific intelligence test and achievement test scores were not released for either group for this study. The reader is cautioned that this may affect the generalizability

of the results.

Measures The Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale (Piers, 1984) measures the construct of self-concept by asking the subject to respond to 80 declarative statements. The statements are worded in both positive and negative language to control for social desirability response sets; the items were written at a thirdgrade reading level (Piers, 1984). Median test-retest reliability coefficients were .73, with retest intervals ranging from 3 weeks to 8 months (Piers,

1984).

Factor analyses have identified six cluster scales that reflect different aspects of self-concept: (1) Behavior, which reflects the extent to which the student admits or denies problematic behavior; (2) Intellectual and School Status, which reflects the student’s assessment of his or her academic abilities; (3) Physical Appearance and Attributes, which reflects the student’s assessment of her or his physical and leadership characteristics; (4) Anxiety, which reflects general

157

Ayres et al.

emotional disturbance; (5) Popularity, which reflects the student’s assessment of his or her popularity with classmates; (6) Happiness and Satisfaction, which reflects a general Smith, & Michael, The Intellectual

feeling of happiness and satisfaction with life (Michael, 1975; Piers, 1984). Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (IAR) (Cran& Crandall, 1965) consists of 34 forced-choice items depict-

dall, Katkovsky, ing success or failure in school situations. The student is asked to indicate whether each outcome was due to an internal or external cause. Two-month test-retest reliability figures were reported as .69. For the present study, sentence stems from the IAR were used that reflect success or failure circumstances.

Students were asked to differentiate

each item on an internal-external

dimension or on a stable-unstable dimension, allowing for attributions of ability and effort. The four subscales created had a total of 32 items, 7 on the Success Internal-External subscale, 8 on the Failure Internal-External subscale, 10 on the Success

Stable-Unstable

subscale,

and 7 on the Failure-Un-

stable subscale. All of the Internal-External items were taken directly from the IAR; the Stable-Unstable items used the IAR stems but new response choices were created. Because the subscales used were modifications of the original IAR,

coefficient

alphas were calculated for each to check reliability. The values

obtained were the following: Success Internal-External, .49; Failure InternalExternal, .61; Success Stable-Unstable, .53; and Failure Stable-Unstable, .64. The subjects’ persistence

was measured

by a lo-item

rating scale completed

by their teachers. Each item addressed an aspect of persistence (e.g., “This student gives up easily when frustrated”) and provided a 3-point scale (never, sometim, uhuy~) for the teacher to rate. The internal consistency of the persistence rating scale was assessed; a coefficient alpha of .90 was obtained.

Procedure The Piers-Harris

and the revised IAR

were completed

individually

by each

student. The NA students completed the measures in their classrooms during regular class time; the LD students completed the measures in the resource rooms or learning centers. Each subject’s regular classroom teacher completed the persistence

rating scale.

RESULTS In the first stage of the analysis, the LD students and the NA group means were compared. Because of the unequal gender makeup of the groups and some past research supporting gender differences (e.g., Licht et al., 1985), an analysis of covariance was used with gender as the covariate. These results are presented in Table 1. The measures which most clearly differentiated

between the groups were the

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158

Table 1 Analysis of Covariance for LD and NA Group Mean Comparisons

LD

NA

Gender covariate

GKWp effect F

x

SD

X

SD

F

51.9

12.9

School Status Physical App. Anxiety Popularity Happiness

12.1 9.4 7.4 9.4 7.7 7.9

3.2 3.9 3.6 2.9 3.1 2.5

56.4 12.5 12.1 8.5 9.6 8.4 8.1

12.3 3.6 3.6 3.5 3.1 2.9 1.9

.ll 76 -19 .52 .ll .05

3.00 .13 12.55** 3.19 .55 1.69 .13

IAR I-E Success I-E Failure s-u Success S-U Failure Persistence ratings

2.4 3.4 2.9 3.7 19.7

1.5 2.1 1.7 1.6 4.6

2.1 2.5 3.7 1.5 23.4

1.6 1.5 2.2 1.4 4.3

3.35 3.21 .Ol 4.29* i.zo**

.38 4.22* 3.58 46.02** 14.29**

Measure Piers-Harris Total score Behavior

.oo

Note. All scores reported are raw scores for the scale. High external and stable attributions. “IAR=Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire; nal-External; S-U=Stable-Unstable. *p<.os. **p<.o1.

Intellectual

and School Status subscale of the Piers-Harris,

scores reflect I-E=Inter-

the Failure Inter-

nal-External and Failure Stable-Unstable subscales of the IAR, and the teacher persistence ratings. The gender covariate explained a significant amount of variance in the Failure Stable-Unstable subscale and the teacher persistence ratings, but clear group differences remained after the gender influence was removed. A correlation matrix demonstrated a fairly large amount of intercorrelation among the measures, as shown in Table 2. Because of the presence of correlated measures,

a multivariate

analysis was

appropriate. A discriminant analysis was completed that produced one discriminant function (since only two groups were used). The solution to this analysis produced the following standardized discriminant function coefficients: (.82) Failure Stable-Unstable +( - .55) Teacher Ratings +( - .17) School Status+(. 10) Failure Internal-External+( -. 12) Gender+( - .25) Success Stable-Unstable+( - .22) Phy sical Appearance +( - .14) Popularity + (--.ll) Success Internal_External+(.31) Anxiety+(.28) Behavior+(.08) Happiness. This function produced a canonical correlation of .70, and Wilks lambda of .51; (chi-square of 64.6, df= 11, p< .OOOl). The predictive accuracy of the discriminant function was quite good, classifying 80% of the LD and 86% of the NA groups correctly. An examination of the discriminant function shows that there are three

VI ID

Notc. n=106. High “IAR=Intellectual *p<.o5. **p<.o1.

IAR” I-E Success I-E Failure s-u success S-U Failure Persistence ratings

Piers-Harris Total Behavior School Status Appearance Anxiety Popularity Happiness

- .37** -.28* -.13 - .25* .29*

.4a** .15 .44** .20* .50**

Behavior

-.30** -.lO .02 - .45** .30**

.64** .54** .41** .47**

School Status

-.21* -.03 -.09 -.14 .03

.55** .66** .63**

Physical Appearance

Piers-Harris

-.13 -.I4 .03 -.23* .09

.61** .66**

Anxiety

Scales

Ratings

-.25* -.13 -.20* -.I1 .20*

Happiness

S-U=StabIe-Unstable.

-.19* -.16 -.12 -.17 .Ol

.Ci0**

Popularity

Table 2 Matrix for Piers-Harris, IAR, and Persistence

scores on the IAR reflect external and stable attributions. Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire; I-E=Internal-External;

- .36** - .23** -.I1 - .32** .20*

.67** .77** .73** .79** .69** .77**

Total

Correlation

.37** .45** .34** - .07

I-E success

.21* .53* .Ol

I-E Failure

IAR

-.Ol .12

S-U success

-.18

s-u Failure

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The Journal of School Psychology

variables with structure coefficients ed that LD students in comparison for failure situations

(.73),

and had lower school-related

larger than .30. The function demonstratwith NA students had higher stable scores

had lower teacher self-concept

ratings

for persistence

(-.43),

scores (- .35).

DISCUSSION The results from this study provide additional evidence that self-concept ences between

groups of normally

achieving

students

differ-

and learning-disabled

students are specific to academic areas. In a previous study Cooley and Ayres (1988) found that the global differences in self-concept between the two groups were due to the school-related self-concept. In this study the differences were limited to the subscale relating to school performance. These findings are consistent

with those

reported

by Battle

(1979),

Chapman

and

Boersma

(1979), and Marsh (1988) and suggest that the focus of attempts to improve the self-concept of LD students should be the students’ academic self-concept. Attributional differences were found between the two groups, the LD students being much school experiences.

more likely to make maladaptive attributions for their Failures were attributed to external factors or to stable

(ability) factors, both of which can be seen as beyond personal control. This pattern of self-concept and maladaptive attributions is consistent with the learned-helplessness pattern hypothesized by Dweck (Dweck & Repucci, 1973; Diener

& Dweck,

1978) and the inactive learner

described

by Torgeson

and

Licht (1983). In this conceptualization LD students feel their failures are beyond personal control and they therefore may not attempt to overcome difficulties encountered in the classroom. In addition, self-concept was negatively related to their attribution of failure to limited ability. Although correlational findings do not permit any assumptions of causation, the negative relationship between self-concept and attributions may further complicate and/or strengthen the resistance of each to intervention. The LD students were seen by their teachers as significantly

less persistent

than their normally achieving peers on academic tasks. This finding is also consistent with the learned-helplessness or inactive learner hypotheses described above and illustrates the likely consequences of such an attributional/ self-concept pattern in the classroom. A lack of persistence will handicap any child in the classroom, but if this lack of persistence is paired with learning problems of some kind, the result may be particularly devastating. The data from this study suggest that educators designing interventions to improve the academic performance of LD students should consider the students’ attributions and self-concept as well. For students who do not believe they are capable of succeeding or do not believe they have control over the outcome of instruction, any academic intervention, well-designed or not, is unlikely to be successful. While the current

findings suggest that LD students,

who by definition

are

161

Ayres et al.

not academically

successful,

exhibit

affective and cognitive

failure that can adversely affect their future performance, are unresolved. Even though LD students by definition

responses

to their

there are issues that have mental ability

within normal limits, there is evidence that their IQ scores may be lower, on average, than those of normally achieving peers. In studies reported by Aponik and Dembo (1983) and Luchow, Crowl, and Kahn (1985), for example, the LD samples had mean IQ scores in the mid-80’s to mid-go’s, This raises the question whether part of the LD students’ self-perceptions about their academic performance, particularly their tendency to make stable (ability) attributions for failure experiences, may be due to relatively lower levels of ability. As Jacobsen, Lowery, and DuCette (1986) point out, LD students experience more failure than NA students, and they take more personal responsibility for that failure. Relatively lower levels of ability may well contribute to this failure. The absence of IQ data for the present sample prevents any exploration of this issue. There

is also evidence

that LD

students

are not a homogeneous

group.

McKinney (1984), McKinney and Speece (1986), and others (e.g., Satz & Morris, 1981; Lyon, 1985) have described several subtypes of LD students. These have included perceptual-motor, attention deficit, and language subtypes, as well as behavioral

LD subtypes.

An unanswered

question

is whether

the observed differences in self-concept, attributional patterns, and behavioral persistence reported in the present study and elsewhere are specific to certain LD subtypes or whether they are consistent across subtypes. Additional research seems necessary

to explore this issue. Additional

to identify, if possible, the causes of these maladaptive learn how to consistently

and effectively intervene

research is also needed affective patterns and to

to break these patterns.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A version of this manuscript was presented tion, San Francisco, April, 1988. This research

was partially

supported

at Western Psychological

Associa-

by a grant from the Action Alliance

for Excellence in Education (A2E2). The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Kim Laird, Linda St. Pierre, Quentin Schwartz, Sandy Bell, Jim Waid, Sharon Gore, and Lois Hines in the data collection.

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