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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confidence and liking. Ascribing failure to task difficulty negatively affected confidence,
while ascribing failure to lack of effort reduced liking. Ito (1996) found among the
Japanese 7^th graders that provision of the informational feedback and teaching them
how to learn the subject such as reviewing, summarising and constructing is reported as
important for linking children’s attribution of their failure to lack of effort to hope for future
success.

Overall, these research findings indicate that attribution styles are different in relation to
age and culture. Ascribing failure to lack of ability is related to lower outcome
expectancy, lower academic self-concept, lower self-esteem and deteriorated
motivation, and sense of shame. The negative effects of attributing failure to lack of
ability may become stronger for older children, whose attribution style be∞mes more
internal and self-evaluative. Ascribing failure to effort may give more positive effects than
ascribing failure to ability, but it may not produce positive outcome expectancy for some
Japanese, who adopt effort-based attribution as a measure to maintain their self-esteem.
The Japanese tend to think that luck is a personal trait, which can co-exist with effort.
Although the Japanese are likely to ascribe failure to the lack of their own effort rather
than others’, ascribing failure to lack of others’ effort has been reported to produce anger
and withdrawal of help. There is evidence that attribution styles can be changed.

Goal orientation and pupils’ attitudes towards learning

The main focus of research relating to goal orientation theories is on the comparison of
the two opposing concepts of goal orientation, mastery and performance, in terms of ‘the
way of approaching, engaging in, and responding to achievement situations’ (Ames,
1992), although the exact labelling of these concepts varies according to each theory.
Pintrich et al. (1996) have synthesised the comparisons made between Mastery and
Performance goals. Pupils with mastery goals focus on how learning advances
according to self-set standards, present adaptive attributions, and show positive
cognition, affect, and behaviour. On the other hand, pupils with performance goals focus
on performance outcomes, and attempt to avoid showing lack of ability or worth through
relative assessment, in turn, present maladaptive attributional patterns, show negative
influence on cognition and behaviour and build negative affect into failure.

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