5th and 8th grade pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions of the relationships between teaching methods, classroom ethos, and positive affective attitudes towards learning mathematics in Japan

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Weiner (1986, 1992) proposed that the stability dimension of attribution induced
expectancy change, the locus dimension induced esteem-related affects, and the control
dimension induced social-related affects. Ascribing failure to unstable factors such as
lack of effort produces positive outcome expectancy, while ascribing it to stable factors
such as lack of ability reduces learners’ outcome expectancy. Ascribing positive learning
outcomes to external causes, and negative learning outcomes to internal causes, would
decrease self-esteem and academic self-concepts. Ascribing negative learning
outcomes to controllable factors such as lack of effort produces guilt, while ascribing
them to uncontrollable factors such as lack of ability produces shame. In short, ascribing
negative outcomes to lack of effort provides individuals with an expectancy for future
success and enables lowered self-esteem to recover. Consequently, these effects often
promote motivational activation and approach behaviour. On the other hand, ascribing
negative outcomes to lack of ability provides the individual with a low possibility of future
success and hence decreased self-esteem is less likely to recover. As a result, the
person feels submissive, inferior and helpless, giving rise to withdrawal and motivational
inhibition.

“Learned helplessness” theory proposes that some individuals attribute failure to stable
factors and have low outcome expectancy (Abramson, et al.1978; Peterson et al. 1993).
Marsh (1984) and Nicholls (1979) have also suggested that ascribing failure to lack of
ability has negative effects on academic self-concept. However, it has been reported that
pupils’ attributionaɪ styles may be altered by training. Schunk (1983) reported that
altering children’s attributional styles, so they could attribute their success to ability,
improved their mathematics self-efficacy and achievement, while Dweck (1975) reported
that encouraging children to attribute their failure to effort improved their attitudes and
performance.

Individuals tend to make biased attributions to maintain their self-esteem; this is called
“self-serving bias”. Individuals tend to take personal responsibility for successful
outcomes (a self-enhancing bias) and deny responsibility for failure outcomes (a self-
protective bias). Some individuals tend to take responsibility for an out∞me, regardless
of actual success or failure. This tendency is called the “self-centred bias” (Pintrich,
1996). In addition, some individuals come to see their behaviour or attitude as typical,
and to maintain their beliefs so as to preserve their self-esteem. This tendency is called

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