Attributions and Academic Achievement of Educatiori, Medicine and Polytechnic Freshman Students in Bahir Dar

Abstract

High attrition of freshman students in 1996/97 initiated this
study. It is aimed at investigating how far academic achievement is accounted
for by causal attributions. Causal attributions of successes and failures were
first collected in an open-ended questionnaire and then structured into a fivepoint-scale of different items - twenty items for success and twenty-three for
failure. After first semester exam result was reported, the instrument was
administered. The collected data were analyzed using Pearson 's r, t-test and
F-test. Results showed that attributions correlated significantly with GP A, sex
and, faculty. Lack of effort and placement to college (as perceived causes of
failure) and God's help (as perceived cause of success) were the first three
causes to be related to GP A. Effort and task difficulty were attributed more by
females than by males, and luck more by males than females to success and
failure. Polytechnic students, more than others, seemed to attribute their
success to friends' role, and their failure to unluckiness and teachers' bias.
Lack of interest in subjects and placement to college were attributed to failure
respectively by Medicine and Education students more than others.