Examining Achievement Goals and Causal Attributions Together as Predictors of Academic Functioning

This study was designed to forge stronger theoretical and empirical links between achievement goal theory and attribution theory. High school students (N = 224) completed a self-report survey that assessed 3 types of achievement goals, 7 types of attributions, and self-efficacy. Results indicated that students' adoption of achievement goals explained 4 types of attributions, but no single type of achievement goal stood out as the most consistent or strongest predictor for those attributions. Results also showed that a focus on mastery and certain types of attributions, but not either form of performance goals was associated with a more adaptive pattern of behavioral and cognitive engagement. Overall, the present study provides a valuable contribution by promoting integration among prominent models of achievement motivation, and by extending what is known about the relations between each of these models and students' academic functioning.