CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

ARTICLE NO.

21, 363387 (1996)

0027

Causal Attributions and Reading Achievement: Individual

Differences in Low-Income Families
JULIA T. OSULLIVAN
Faculty of Education, Memorial University
AND

MARK L. HOWE
Department of Psychology, Memorial University
In this study the development of causal attributions about reading within low-income
families was examined. Specifically, relations between childrens reading achievement
and their causal attributions were investigated as well as relations between the childrens
attributions about themselves and their parents attributions about them. A total 513
students from Grades 3, 6, and 9, and one parent of each student, all from low-income
families, participated. Students and parents independently rated the importance of seven
causal variables (effort, intellectual ability, liking for reading, the teacher, help at
home, difficulty of reading material, and luck) for the students good and poor reading
outcomes. The major findings were that (a) at each grade, students attributions were
reliably related to their reading achievement on the GatesMacGinitie reading comprehension test, with attributions to ability, liking for reading, and help at home especially
critical; (b) at each grade, parent attributions were reliably associated with student
attributions; and (c) as students grade in school increased, they focused more on
themselves and less on others as causal determinants of their reading performance. The
implications of these findings for research and education are discussed. q 1996 Academic
Press, Inc.

Between 15 and 30% of all school children underachieve in reading and

most of these children come from low-income families (Ellis & Large, 1987).
There is considerable evidence that, compared to children from middle- and
upper-income homes, children from low-income families begin school at risk
for underachievement in reading and that their underachievement increases
with grade level (Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993; Walker, Greenwood, Hart, &

Preparation of this article was funded by a grant from the National Literacy Secretariat, Canada,
and by Grants OGP0046514 (to Julia T. OSullivan) and OGP0003334 (to Mark L. Howe) from
the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We are indebted to the
parents and students who so graciously gave of their time and participated in this study. Correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed to Julia T. OSullivan, Faculty of Education,
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada A1B 3X8. Electronic
mail may be sent to juliao@morgan.ucs.mun.ca.
363
0361-476X/96 $18.00
Copyright q 1996 by Academic Press, Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Carta, 1994; Wigfield & Asher, 1983). Recently, research emphasis has shifted
from descriptions of the effects of low income on childrens reading achievement to analyses of the processes by which such effects come about (Huston,
McLoyd, & Garcia Coll, 1994). Most of that research has been focused on
how language and literacy environments in the home mediate the impact of
economic hardship on childrens reading achievement (Walker et al., 1994).
In contrast, little attention has been paid to the influence of achievement
motivation, a factor demonstrated to be extremely important for reading
achievement in general (Borkowski, Johnston, & Reid, 1987). Although researchers have long emphasized the critical need for such research (e.g.,
Wigfield & Asher, 1983), we do not yet understand how achievement motivation mediates the effects of low income on reading achievement, nor do we
understand how childrens achievement motivation is socialized within these
families or within families in general. In the present study, we take an initial
look at some of these questions. In particular, the causal attributions for
reading held by children from low-income homes were examined and related
to their reading achievement. Also, parents attributions for their childrens
reading were measured and the influence of parents attributional beliefs on
what the children themselves believed was evaluated. Before presenting the
study, the literature on childrens attributions about reading, parents attributions about their children, and within-family relations in attributions will be
summarized.
In cognitive theories of achievement motivation, causal beliefs are appointed a significant role. Weiner (1994) proposed that individuals search for
reasons to explain their performance in achievement situations. He argued that
individuals frequently use the following four factors to explain achievement
outcomes: intellectual ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Furthermore,
he classified each of these factors along three dimensions: stability, controllability, and locus (internal or external to the individual). Weiner (1994) hypothesized that the attributions individuals make influence their expectancy of
success, their achievement behaviors, and their achievement performance. For
example, individuals who attribute unsuccessful outcomes to insufficient effort (a variable they can control) expect to succeed following a failure and
persist in their efforts to succeed in the future. In contrast, individuals who
attribute unsuccessful outcomes to insufficient ability (a variable they cannot
control) have decreased expectancies for success following failure and tend
to give up easily (Weiner, 1994).
Most researchers who have examined childrens causal attributions for
reading have focused on attributions to the four factors identified as important
by Weiner (i.e., ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck). Findings from those
studies indicate that, in general, good readers attribute successful reading to
ability and unsuccessful reading to insufficient effort or task difficulty, while

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poor readers attribute success to luck or ease of the task and attribute unsuccessful outcomes to insufficient ability (Butkowsky & Willows, 1980; Lewis,
1989; Stipek & Mason, 1987; Wagner, Spratt, Gal, & Paris, 1989). Importantly, several researchers have shown that children frequently make attributions for reading to variables besides effort, ability, luck, and task difficulty
(Hiebert, Winograd, & Danner, 1988; Newman & Stevenson, 1990; OSullivan & Joy, 1994). In particular, liking for reading and help from teachers
or parents have emerged as important in childrens views about the causal
determinants of their reading. However, there are no published reports where
childrens attributions to all of these variables (i.e., effort, ability, luck, task
difficulty, liking, help from teachers and at home) have been measured simultaneously. Consequently, we do not know how good and poor readers explain
their performance in the context of this larger constellation of causal variables.
Equally important, we do not know how children from low-income families
explain their reading performance. Unfortunately there has been little research
at all on socioeconomic differences in academic attributions, and no published
reports where the reading attributions of children from low-income homes
were the focus. Regardless, Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, and Rosenbaum (1971) hypothesized that attributional processes likely play a major
role in observed socioeconomic differences in childrens academic achievement. They argued that, relative to children from middle- and upper-income
homes, children from low-income families believe they have little control
over their environment and, therefore, are more likely to attribute their success
to external factors, like luck and ease of the task, than to their own effort or
ability. Attributing success to these external factors would, in turn, be associated with decreased expectancy of success, less than optimal achievement
behavior, and underachievement.
Although Weiner et al. (1971) were predicting differences in attributions
between socioeconomic groups, it is also the case that, within the low-income
group, individual differences in attributional processing should be related to
achievement. That is, children from low-income families who exhibit adaptive
attributional processes (e.g., attribute success to ability and failure to insufficient effort) should be achieving at higher levels than those exhibiting more
negative attributional processing (e.g., attributing success to luck and failure
to lack of ability). If this is the case, then attributional processing could prove
to be an important variable mediating the impact of economic hardship on
childrens reading. Consequently, the main purpose in the study reported
here was to determine if differences in attributions were related to reading
achievement among children from low-income families.
In this study we took into account two variables that are hypothesized to be
influential for childrens attributions. These are the childs age and cognitive
developmental level, and parents attributions about the child. Consider age

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OSULLIVAN AND HOWE

and cognitive developmental level first. Developmental differences in attributions about reading would be expected. After all, compared to older children,
young children do not fully differentiate among effort, ability, and reading
performance and feedback, especially negative feedback, has less impact on
their achievement beliefs (Stipek & MacIver, 1989). The precise nature of
age-related changes in childrens reading attributions is unclear because few
developmental studies have in fact been reported (Whitehead, Anderson, &
Mitchell, 1987; Whitley & Frieze, 1985; Winograd, Witte, & Smith, 1986).
However, it seems to be the case that with age, children increasingly differentiate between the contribution of their ability and their effort to reading performance (Hiebert et al., 1984; OSullivan & Joy, 1994; Wagner et al., 1989;
Wigfield, 1988) and attach less importance to the role of others (e.g., parents or
teachers) in determining their achievement (Hiebert et al., 1984; Newman &
Stevenson, 1990). Of course, it is not only childrens attributions that vary
with age. So do relations between their attributions and reading achievement.
That is, attributions become increasing good predictors of reading as grade
level increases (Wagner et al., 1989). Clearly, we need developmental studies
to elucidate the effects of age on childrens reading attributions and their
relation to reading achievement. This is true for all children including those
from low-income homes.
Now consider the influence of parents on childrens developing attributional
beliefs. Parents socialize achievement beliefs in their children (Ginsburg &
Bronstein, 1993; Okagaki & Sternberg, 1993; Wigfield, 1983). For example,
parents beliefs about their childrens competence in reading and mathematics
not only influence childrens beliefs about themselves, but are often more
influential than the childs past achievement performance (Ginsburg &
Bronstein, 1993; Okagaki & Sternberg, 1993). Similarly, parents develop
causal explanations for their childrens success and failures and it has been
argued that they likely communicate these explanations through their behavior
and language around the childs academic behaviors and performance (OSullivan, 1993; OSullivan & Joy, 1994). Despite the conceptual appeal of
hypotheses about within-family socialization of attributions, there is little
empirical evidence to support them. This is because few researchers have
examined relationships in academic attributions between children and their
parents (for a review see Miller, 1995) and, those that have, have produced
little evidence of consistency within families. An important factor in research
on this issue should be the childs age. It seems likely that parents attributions
about their children might vary with the age of the child. For example,
parents of older children may be more likely to attribute their performance
to dispositional factors like ability and to factors the child can control like
effort (Dix & Grusec, 1985). Furthermore, a childs age might influence
relations between parentchild attributions within the family. For example,

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young children would find it difficult to see eye-to-eye with parents about
effort, ability, and performance due to developmental limitations in their
understanding of the difference among these three variables (Miller, 1995).
Consequently, relations between parentchild attributions may be stronger
for older children.
THE PRESENT STUDY

To our knowledge, the present study represents the first empirical work on
the development of causal attributions about reading in low-income families.
Note that by the term causal we simply mean beliefs about cause, not necessarily the actual cause. We addressed two specific issues. First, the effects of
childrens grade in school and their reading achievement level (low, moderate,
or high) on their attributions about their reading and on their parents attributions about the childrens reading were examined. Second, relations between
childrens attributions and their standardized reading achievement scores, and
between parents attributions about their children and the childrens attributions about themselves, were investigated. Furthermore, attributions to a constellation of seven variables, demonstrated in the literature to be important
in childrens beliefs about reading, were measured. These were intellectual
ability, effort, liking for reading, help at home, the teacher, difficulty of
reading material, and luck. Children and their parents rated the contribution
of each cause to the childs good and poor reading outcomes. Consistent with
the literature reviewed here, we expected that childrens attributions would
be related to achievement at each grade level with superior reading demonstrated by children with more adaptive attributional beliefs. We also expected
that childrens beliefs about themselves would be reliably related to parents
beliefs about them, especially older childrens beliefs. Finally, we predicted
that with age children and parents would increasingly emphasize the influence
of the childs own ability and effort to reading and deemphasize the contribution of others.
METHOD

Sample
Participants were recruited from 26 schools in Eastern Newfoundland, the province with the
highest child poverty rate in Canada (Statistics Canada, 1988). The schools were situated in
communities where the average family income was less than, and the incidence of low-income
families higher than, the Provincial average (Statistics Canada, 1988). The parents/guardians
(hereafter referred to as parents) of all Grade 3, 6, and 9 students attending those schools, 1527
students in all, were contacted by telephone; 92.4% agreed to participate and completed a
telephone interview. Of these interviewed parents, 77% subsequently gave written permission
for their children to participate, 1079 students in total. On the basis of employment information
supplied by parents, this sample of 1079 students was reduced to 513 students from very lowincome families (Entwisle & Astone, 1994; Hauser, 1994). The student participants were 177

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OSULLIVAN AND HOWE

(55% male, 45% female) Grade 3 students (M age 8 years 6 months, SD 6.1 months), 173
(48% male, 52% female) Grade 6 students (M age 11 years 9 months, SD 7.0 months),
and 163 (42% male, 58% female) Grade 9 students (M age 14 years 10 months, SD 8.9
months). Most of the students (76%) lived in rural communities.
Most (91.9%) of the participating parents were mothers of the students sampled. Most of the
participating parents (80.8%) reported that they were married and most (80%) indicated that the
childs second parent was living in the home. Participating parents reported an average of 9 years
11 months formal education (includes Public school, Trade school, University) for themselves and
an average of 9 years 7 months formal education for the second parent (i.e., the 80% of second
parents living with the family). Concerning employment, 52% of participating parents reported
that they had not worked at all during the previous 12 months. Of those reporting employment,
the majority were manual laborers, mostly workers in fish plants, and less than 11% had worked
for more than 30 weeks during the previous year. In families where a second parent lived at
home (80% of the families), the participating parent provided employment information for the
second parent. Of that group, 17% were unemployed during the previous year. Among second
parents who worked, most were manual laborers (mainly fish plant workers) and skilled tradespeople (mainly fishermen/women) and less than 10% had worked for more than 30 weeks during
the previous 12 months.

Measures and Procedure

Students causal attributions for reading performance were measured on a 14-item questionnaire
(see Appendix). The independent contribution of seven causal variables (i.e., effort, intellectual
ability, good teaching, liking reading, help at home, ease of reading material, and luck) to good
reading and poor reading were measured on 7-point Likert scales (anchors were not true and
very true). The choice of a rating scale format was based on evidence which suggests that
such measures possess superior psychometric properties (Elig & Frieze, 1979). Because we
wanted to measure generalized attributional perceptions rather than reactions to specific situations
(Lewis, 1989), items were worded as follows: When I do well/poorly in reading, it is usually
because . . . . Parents causal attributions for their childrens reading were measured on a
questionnaire identical to the student questionnaire except that items were worded When my
child does well/poorly in reading, it is usually because . . . (see Appendix). Students reading
comprehension was measured on the comprehension subtest of the GatesMacGinitie Reading
Test (MacGinitie, 1978).
The parent questionnaire was administered over the telephone by one of six trained interviewers. Students were tested in groups in their schools by three research assistants. Students completed the student causal attribution questionnaire first, followed by the reading comprehension
subtest on the GatesMacGinitie Reading Test. The questionnaire was read aloud by the research
assistant. After each item was read aloud, the research assistant held up a large version of the
7-point rating scale, showed it to the students, and explained the meaning of the different points
on the scale. Children indicated their responses by circling the appropriate number on the scale
with a pencil.

RESULTS

Two sets of questions were addressed in the analyses. First, the effects of
students grade in school, students reading achievement level, and reading
outcome (good or poor reading) on students and parents causal attributions
for the students reading were determined. Second, relations between students
attributions and their standardized reading achievement scores, and between

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TABLE 1
PERCENTAGES (AND NUMBERS IN PARENTHESES) OF STUDENTS
IN ACHIEVEMENT GROUP BY GRADE
Grade
Reading
achievement

Third

Sixth

Ninth

Low
Moderate
High

34% (61)
30% (53)
36% (63)

27% (47)
38% (65)
35% (61)

28% (45)
36% (58)
37% (60)

parents attributions about their children and the childrens attributions about
themselves, were examined. To begin, we present the findings concerning the
students standardized reading achievement.
Reading Achievement
Reading achievement groups were formed by partitioning students into
low-, moderate-, and high-achieving groups based on their standardized scores
on the GatesMacGinitie Test (Oka & Paris, 1987). The aim here was to
produce three achievement groups with roughly equivalent numbers of students in each group, both within and across grades. To achieve that we
developed the following partitioning procedure. Students whose standardized
scores were less than or equal to 36 formed the low reading achievement
group, those whose scores ranged from 37 to 46 formed the moderate
reading achievement group, and those whose scores were greater than 46
formed the high reading achievement group. The terms low, moderate,
and high achievers are of course relative. When compared to the national
norms for this test (the national average is 50 with a standard deviation of
10) obviously only the high achievers in this study have scores that fall in
at least the average range of the national distribution. The number of students
in the three reading achievement groups at each grade level is shown in Table
1. Chi-square analyses indicated that the proportion of low, moderate, and
high achievers was equivalent across the grades [x2(4) 3.58, ns].
The analyses in this article are contingent on students standardized reading
scores being equivalent across grade. To verify this equivalence, students
standardized scores were analyzed using a 3 (grade: 3 vs 6 vs 9) 1 3 (reading
achievement: low vs moderate vs high) analysis of variance (ANOVA). The
effect for reading achievement was significant, F(2,504) 1049.46, p
.0001, and post-hoc tests (Tukey-Kramer modification of Tukeys HSD) revealed that standardized test scores increased significantly from the low (M
31.6) to the moderate (M 41.1) to the high (M 52.6) achievement

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OSULLIVAN AND HOWE

group (all p values .01). When these means were converted to percentile
ranks, the low achievers were performing on average below the fifth percentile, the moderate achievers at approximately the 18th percentile, and the high
achievers at approximately the 60th percentile rank. Individual scores ranged
from the 1st to the 99th percentile. Neither the effect for grade nor the Grade
1 Reading Achievement interaction was statistically significant.
Students Causal Attributions
Students causal attributions were analyzed using a 3(grade) 1 3(reading
achievement level) 1 2(reading outcome: good vs poor) 1 7(cause: effort,
teacher, ability, liking, help at home, ease, and luck) ANOVA where the first
two factors were between-subjects and the latter two were within-subject.
The results indicated that all main effects and interactions were statistically
significant, including the interaction involving grade, achievement level, reading outcome, and cause [F(24,2886) 2.43, p .0001].1 Because this interaction modifies all other effects, we simply report the direction of the main
effects and then the follow-up analyses on the interaction. Concerning the
main effects, younger students endorsed the attributions more than older
students, lower achievers endorsed the attributions more than higher achievers,
and attributions for good reading were endorsed more than attributions for
poor reading. Three follow-up 3(reading achievement level) 1 2(reading outcome: good vs poor) 1 7(cause: effort, teacher, ability, liking, help at home,
ease, and luck) ANOVAs were conducted, one for each grade. Findings
indicated that, at each grade level, the Reading Achievement 1 Reading
Outcome 1 Cause interaction was significant [F(12,984) 2.76, p .002,
for Grade 3; F(12,978) 6.09, p .0001, for Grade 6; F(12,924) 2.92,
p .0006, for Grade 9]. Consequently, at each grade level, two final 3
(reading achievement) 1 7 (cause) analyses of variance were completed, one
for good and one for poor reading outcomes. The Reading Achievement 1
Cause interaction was significant in all these analyses [for good outcomes
F(12,1014) 3.42, in Grade 3; F(12,990) 7.23, in Grade 6; F(12,954)
3.69, in Grade 9 with all p values .0001; for poor outcomes F(12,1008)
2.52, p .003, in Grade 3; F(12,1008) 2.20, p .01, in Grade 6;
F(12,930) 3.19, p .0002, in Grade 9].
Post-hoc tests (TukeyKramer modification of Tukeys HSD, all p values
.05) were used to evaluate simple main effects in all six interactions and
1
Because the sphericity test was significant (p .00001) for the within-subject effects throughout this article, the GeisserGreenhouse adjustment (e.g., see Kirk, 1982) was applied. Because
the findings were the same in each case, no further adjustments were necessary, and it was
concluded that regardless of the circularity assumption, the outcomes were genuinely significant
(see Hays, 1988, p. 525).

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the relevant means (i.e., for each cause at each grade and achievement level
and for both good and poor reading outcomes) are shown in Table 2. Before
detailing the results of the post-hoc tests, several overall patterns in these
data will be described. First, consistent with the main effect for reading
outcome, students considered that these seven causal variables provided a
better account, overall, of their good compared to their poor reading outcomes.
Second, developmental differences were evident for good reading outcomes
where Grade 3 students gave especially large endorsements to this group of
causal variables. However, this developmental trend was not obtained for
attributions to poor reading. Third, students at each grade consistently rated
their ability, their effort, and their liking for reading as the most important
determinants of good reading while endorsing insufficient effort and the difficulty of the reading material as the major contributors of poor outcomes.
Results of the post-hoc tests for good and poor reading outcomes were
consistent with our prediction that students in the higher achievement groups
would demonstrate more adaptive attributional beliefs. Consider the findings
for good reading first. Across the grades, four of the seven causal variables
were weighted differentially by the three achievement groups. These variables
were ability, liking for reading, luck, and help at home. Specifically, in Grade
3 only one cause, ability, was differentially endorsed by the different achievement groups. High achievers considered that their ability was a more important
determinant of their good reading than did low achievers. In Grade 6, high
achievers attached more importance to their liking for reading than low
achievers. Low achievers, in turn, stressed the contribution of both help at
home and luck more than high achievers and these low achievers also believed
that the teacher was a more important element in their good reading than did
moderate achievers. The only significant finding in Grade 9 was that low
achievers stressed luck more than high achievers.
Post-hoc test findings for poor reading outcomes revealed that as grade level
increased, differences between the achievement groups became increasingly
focused on a small subset of causal variables, particularly insufficient ability
and dislike for reading both fairly stable and uncontrollable characteristics.
Specifically, in Grade 3, there were significant differences due to reading
achievement for all causes except the teacher. Compared to moderate and
high achievers, low achievers placed more emphasis on the contribution of
insufficient effort, insufficient ability, and insufficient help at home to their
poor reading outcomes. Furthermore, low achievers also emphasized the influence of bad luck and their dislike of reading more than high achievers.
Finally, Grade 3 students emphasis on the difficulty of the reading material
varied systematically across the groups (low moderate high). In contrast,
when students in Grade 6 explained their poor reading outcomes, only one
of the causal variables, dislike for reading, was differentially endorsed by

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5.05
6.26
5.37
5.54
5.00
5.18
6.17

3.97
4.49
3.76
4.05
3.78
5.20
2.80

Ability
Effort
Home
Like
Luck
Material
Teacher

Ability
Effort
Home
Like
Luck
Material
Teacher
Note. Mod, moderate.

Low

Variable

2.10
2.86
1.88
2.79
3.16
3.88
2.35

5.67
6.00
5.44
5.73
4.83
5.56
6.06

Mod

Grade 3 Reading level

1.76
3.06
2.36
2.30
1.94
2.52
1.95

6.43
6.46
4.68
6.01
3.89
4.67
5.90

High

2.74
4.47
2.13
3.72
2.57
4.21
2.51

Poor reading

3.85
5.35
4.76
4.28
3.56
4.02
3.78

Good reading

Low

2.38
4.71
2.27
2.78
2.24
3.76
1.92

4.63
6.03
4.40
5.50
2.72
4.29
5.06

Mod

Grade 6 Reading level

AND

1.98
4.70
1.62
1.92
1.61
3.67
1.62

4.81
5.20
3.52
6.07
1.63
3.23
4.97

High

TABLE 2
EACH CAUSAL VARIABLE FOR THEIR GOOD
GRADE AND READING ACHIEVEMENT GROUP

OF

BY

STUDENTS MEAN ENDORSEMENTS

3.12
5.19
3.38
3.36
2.48
4.38
2.26

3.80
5.75
3.55
4.49
3.18
4.71
4.15

Low

2.14
5.17
1.89
3.17
1.96
3.31
2.65

4.07
5.36
2.91
4.59
2.48
4.12
4.46

Mod

Grade 9 Reading level

POOR READING OUTCOMES

1.69
5.02
1.56
3.00
1.68
3.44
2.12

4.91
5.02
2.69
4.80
1.95
4.15
4.52

High

372
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CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS AND READING

373

the achievement groups, with low-achieving students believing it was more

important than high achievers. Finally, in Grade 9, low achievers believed
that their insufficient ability was more important than did high-achieving
students and these low achievers also implicated insufficient help at home
more than moderate and high achievers.
Overall, the findings for good and poor reading outcomes reveal consistent
differences in attributions among the achievement groups. High achievers
emphasized the contribution of their own ability and liking for reading in
determining good reading. In contrast, low achievers stressed how insufficiencies in those two personal characteristics were instrumental in their poor
reading and how variables external to themselves, luck and other people
(teacher, home help), were important for their good performance.
Parents Causal Attributions
Parents causal attributions were analyzed using a 3(grade) 1 3(reading
achievement level) 1 2(reading outcome: good vs poor) 1 7(cause: effort,
teacher, ability, liking, help at home, ease, and luck) ANOVA where the first
two factors were between-subjects and the latter two were within-subject.
The results indicated that all main effects were statistically significant as were
all interactions except for those involving grade with reading achievement.
The highest order interactions to emerge as significant involved Grade 1
Reading Outcome 1 Cause, F(12,2874) 7.96, p .0001, and Reading
Achievement 1 Reading Outcome 1 Cause F(12,2874) 8.39, p .0001.
The first of these interactions was followed up with two 3(grade) 1 7(cause)
ANOVAs, one for good and one for poor reading outcomes. In both analyses
the Grade 1 Cause interaction emerged as significant [F(12,3066) 11.74,
p .0001, for good outcomes; F(12,2970) 4.83, p .0001, for poor
outcomes]. The mean scores for each cause at each grade is shown in the top
half of Table 3 for good and poor outcomes. The Reading Achievement
1 Reading Outcome 1 Cause interaction was followed by two 3(reading
achievement) 1 7(cause) ANOVAs, one for good and one for poor reading
outcomes. In both analyses the interaction was significant [F(12,3030)
10.41, p .0001, for good outcomes; F(12,2940) 2.53, p .003, for poor
outcomes] and the relevant means are shown in the bottom half of Table 3.
It is clear from the data in Table 3 that, like their children, these parents
believed that the causal variables provided a better account of the childrens
good compared to their poor reading. It is also evident that, overall, these
parents considered that their childs ability, effort, and teacher were the most
influential factors for good reading with insufficient effort and difficult material consistently implicated as most influential for poor outcomes. This is
very similar to the students data except that, for good reading, parents stressed
the teachers contribution more than their children. Post-hoc tests of simple

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TABLE 3
PARENTS MEAN ENDORSEMENTS OF EACH CAUSAL VARIABLE FOR THEIR CHILDRENS GOOD
AND POOR READING OUTCOMES BY GRADE (TOP) AND BY READING ACHIEVEMENT GROUP
(BOTTOM)
Causal attributions by grade
Grade 3 Reading
outcome

Grade 6 Reading
outcome

Grade 9 Reading
outcome

Variable

Good

Poor

Good

Poor

Good

Poor

Ability
Effort
Home
Like
Luck
Material
Teacher

6.02
5.95
6.22
5.68
1.68
3.88
6.35

1.35
4.18
1.85
2.50
1.56
3.44
1.54

6.04
6.21
5.47
5.69
1.78
3.84
6.14

1.40
5.41
2.16
2.70
1.33
3.76
1.59

5.98
6.34
3.91
4.90
1.83
3.44
6.04

1.41
4.19
2.39
2.84
1.59
3.53
1.99

Causal attributions by reading achievement group

Low achievement
Reading outcome

Moderate
achievement
Reading outcome

High achievement
Reading outcome

Variable

Good

Poor

Good

Poor

Good

Poor

Ability
Effort
Home
Like
Luck
Material
Teacher

5.68
6.39
5.78
4.80
2.30
4.27
6.34

1.59
4.92
2.14
3.42
1.81
3.81
1.70

5.98
6.30
4.91
5.32
1.66
3.74
6.11

1.43
4.66
2.40
2.63
1.43
3.70
1.67

6.30
5.85
5.12
6.07
1.43
3.34
6.10

1.17
4.24
1.88
2.12
1.29
3.31
1.69

main effects of the Grade 1 Cause interactions revealed that the effects of
the childrens grade level was focused on parents attributions about three
causes, liking for reading, help at home, and effort. Specifically, parents of
children in Grade 3 and Grade 6 believed that liking reading was more
important for good reading than did parents of children in Grade 9. Also,
parents of younger children attached more importance to help at home for
good reading than parents of older children (Grade 3 Grade 6 Grade
9). For poor reading outcomes, the only effect of grade level was that parents
of children in Grade 6 believed their childs insufficient effort was more
important than did parents of Grade 3 and Grade 9 students.
Parents of children in the different achievement groups distinguished among

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the contributions of liking for reading, luck, difficulty of the material, and
help at home. Specifically, for good reading, parents of high achievers emphasized their childs liking for reading more than parents of moderate or low
achievers. In contrast, parents of low-achieving readers emphasized the contribution of luck and easy material more than parents of high achievers. Parents
of low achievers also put more stress on help at home relative to parents of
moderate achievers. For poor outcomes, the only effect of reading achievement was that parents of low achievers considered their childrens dislike of
reading to be more important than did parents of moderate or high achievers.
Overall, the patterns in parents attributions are quite similar to the childrens attributions. Consistent with their children, parents of high achievers
emphasized the contribution of their childrens liking for reading in determining good reading and parents of low achievers stressed how their childrens
dislike of reading was instrumental in poor outcomes. Parents of low achievers
also agreed with their children that variables external to the child, luck and
help at home, were especially important determinants of their childrens good
reading performance. Importantly, although children in the different achievement groups differentially stressed the contribution of their ability or lack of
it, their parents did not.
Relations between Students and Parents Attributions
The findings reported to this point indicate how students, grouped according
to grade and reading achievement levels, and their parents explain the contribution of the seven causal variables to good and poor reading outcomes. They
indicate, for example, that low-achieving students stress the importance of
insufficient ability for poor performance but that their parents do not. The
findings do not address how individual differences in students attributions
are related to differences across the entire range of reading achievement nor
do they address how individual differences in parents attributions are related
to individual differences in childrens beliefs. For example, they do not indicate if the importance students attach to insufficient ability is associated with
reading performance at all levels of achievement, nor if the importance that
students attach to insufficient ability is related to the importance parents attach
to it. These questions were addressed in the next series of analyses.
Multiple regression analyses were used to measure relations between (a)
student attributions and their performance on the GatesMacGinitie test and
(b) parent and student attributions. Because grade contributed independently
to the differences in student and parent attributions reported earlier, these
issues were investigated separately for each grade. First, to predict performance on the GatesMacGinitie, all 14 student attributions were entered into
a series of stepwise regressions. Second, once it was determined which student
attributions were related to reading achievement, all 14 parent attributions

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STEPWISE MULTIPLE REGRESSIONS

GATES MACGINITIE (LEFT COLUMNS)
STUDENTS ATTRIBUTIONS

TABLE 4
STUDENTS CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS ON
AND OF THE PARENTS CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS ON
OF THE

Children

Step

Cause
come)

THE
THE

Parents
(outr2

Partial r

Cause
(outcome)

r2

1
1
2
1

No predictors
Luck (good)
Ability (good)
Material (poor)
Material (poor)

.05
.05
.08
.05

.23
.23
.17
.22

1
2
1
2
3
1
2
1
2

Like (good)
Material (poor)
Luck (good)
Like (poor)
Home (good)
Effort (poor)
Material (good)
Like (poor)
Teacher (poor)

.10
.12
.10
.13
.16
.05
.08
.07
.11

.31
0.16
.31
.20
.17
0.22
.19
0.27
0.20

1
2
3
4
1
2

Like (good)
Teacher (good)
Luck (good)
Teacher (poor)
Like (good)
Like (poor)
No predictors
No predictors

.07
.11
.14
.17
.10
.13

0.27
.21
.18
0.17
.32
0.17

Step

Partial r

Grade 3
1
2
3

Material (poor)
Ability (poor)
Ability (good)

.15
.19
.21

0.38
0.22
.18

Luck (good)

.24

0.17

Like (good)

.15

.38

Luck (good)

.21

0.27

Home (good)

.24

0.20

Ability (good)

.26

.16

Home (poor)

.19

0.44

Ability (good)

.26

.29

3
4

Ability (poor)
Effort (good)

.29
.32

0.21
0.20

Grade 6

Grade 9

were entered into a series of separate stepwise regressions designed to predict

those critical student attributions. For each of the critical student attributions,
all 14 parent attributions were entered as predictor variables. The findings
from these analyses are shown in Table 4 where the percentage of variance
accounted for and the partial correlations are given for each of the students
predictor variables in the left half of the table and for each of the parents
predictor variables in the right half of the table. Due to the number of analyses,
only those effects that were significant at p .01 were reported.
Several patterns are evident from this table. First, an impressive 25 to 32%
of the variance in performance on the GatesMacGinitie is accounted for by
a subset of student attributions at each grade. Furthermore, parents beliefs

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are reliably related to most of the childrens critical attributions, accounting

for up to 17% of the variance in those attributions. Importantly, when parent
attributions predicted student attributions, the strength of those relationships
increased across grade level. Second, for students, attributing good reading to
internal and presumably stable causes was reliably associated with increasing
reading achievement at each grade. This was true for ability attributions at
in Grades 3, 6, and 9 and for attributions to liking for reading in Grade 6.
Furthermore, the extent to which children emphasized ability and liking was
directly related to the parents stress on these variables. Third, in Grades 3
and 9, the more students stressed that their poor reading was influenced by
their insufficient ability, the lower their achievement. Interestingly, the extent
to which young children implicated their insufficient ability (a stable and
uncontrollable personal characteristic) as a determinant of their poor reading
was predicted by the stress the parents put on luck (an unstable, uncontrollable,
external variable) as a determining factor in their good reading. Fourth, the
more that students in Grades 3 and 6 emphasized the importance of luck for
good reading, the lower their reading achievement. For these children, parents
believed that luck was important for good reading or increasingly focused on
the difficulty of reading material as a cause of the childrens poor performance.
Fifth, attributions to help at home, whether they involved help at home as a
factor in good reading (Grade 6) or insufficient home help as a factor in poor
reading (Grade 9), were negatively related to achievement. Overall, students
emphasis on the role of the home was associated with parental emphasis on
variables external to the student (the teacher, luck, and the reading material)
or the students own insufficient efforts. Clearly, these findings are consistent
with our predictions that individual differences in students attributions would
be reliably related to both their reading achievement and to the parents
beliefs.
DISCUSSION

In this study, the first we know of to examine the development of attributions about reading in low-income families, we addressed three questions.
First, are differences in students attributional processing related to differences
in their reading achievement? We found that, consistent with results from
other income groups, adaptive attributions were associated with high achievement in our low-income sample. Second, are parents attributions about their
children related to the childrens attributions about themselves? Consistent
with hypotheses about the socialization of achievement beliefs within families,
we found that they were, particularly for the older children. Finally, our third
question concerned the effects of students grade in school on their own and
their parents attributions. Based on previous research we expected that as
grade level increased, students and parents would increasingly emphasize the

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students own contribution (e.g., effort, ability, liking) and deemphasize the
contribution of others to performance. Again, this is exactly what we obtained.
In what follows we discuss the findings pertaining to these three fundamental
questions. Before turning to this discussion, it is important to remember that
when we are referring to low, moderate, and high achievers we are
using these terms in a relative (to performance in this sample) manner. Indeed,
compared to the national standards, our low and moderate achievers would
be classified as being significantly below average (18th percentile and below)
and the mean reading score in our high achievement group would fall within
the average range.
Attributions and Reading Achievement
Recall that we hypothesized that students reading achievement would be
related to their attributions, with superior reading demonstrated by students
with more adaptive attributional beliefs. In our study, these relations between
students attributions and reading achievement were addressed at both the
group and individual level. At the group level, we showed that low, moderate,
and high achievers rank-ordered the contribution of the causal variables equivalently. However, as anticipated, there were consistent differences in the
emphases that the different achievement groups attached to some of the individual causes. For example, high achievers emphasized the contribution of
their own ability and liking for reading in determining good reading, whereas,
low achievers stressed how insufficiencies in those two personal characteristics were instrumental in their poor reading. Moreover, low achievers emphasized how variables external to themselves, luck and help at home, were
instrumental to their good performance. Interestingly, these same causal attributions were related to individual differences in achievement. That is, even
among the lowest achieving students in this study, increasing emphasis on the
role of their ability was associated with better reading performance. Similarly,
among the highest achievers, increasing stress on the contribution of help at
home was associated with poorer performance.
These findings are consistent with Weiners model and with related research
concerning the association between attributional processing and achievement.
Most important, the findings extend Weiners model to children in low-income
families. Specifically, attributions to sufficient and insufficient ability, a stable
internal characteristic, has been intimately linked to achievement across a
large number of studies (e.g., Butkowski & Willows, 1980; Weiner, 1994).
Furthermore, attributing success to luck, an unstable variable over which a
child has no control, has consistently been related to lower achievement,
lower expectancy of success, decreased engagement in reading in school, and
lower achievement (Butkowsky & Willows, 1980; Stipek & Mason, 1987).
Our findings confirm that these attributions are as critical for children from

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low-income families as they are for those from more affluent backgrounds.
Concerning the other variables identified by Wiener (effort and task difficulty),
although students considered them to be important, especially effort, they did
not emerge as significant predictors of individual reading achievement.
The findings also support earlier reports that variables besides those in
Weiners model are important in students beliefs about their achievement
(Hiebert et al., 1988; Newman & Stevenson, 1990; OSullivan & Joy, 1994).
Liking for reading, the teacher, and help at home all emerged as important
variables in childrens beliefs. Interestingly, only liking and help at home
were related to reading achievement. Although the teacher was viewed as an
important influence on good, but a negligible influence on poor, reading,
individual differences in students beliefs about the teacher were not related
to their reading achievement. That liking behaved similarly to ability in terms
of its relation to reading is not surprising when we remember that liking, like
ability, can be considered stable, internal, and perhaps uncontrollable.
Importantly, the belief that family members are responsible for your performance (good or poor) seems to be maladaptive inasmuch as attributing good
reading to help at home or poor reading to insufficient help is associated with
lower reading performance. Help at home can be regarded as a variable that
is external to, and to a large extent uncontrollable by, children. In previous
research, attributing good reading to external, uncontrollable variables such
as luck has typically been construed as maladaptive, whereas attributing poor
reading to these external, uncontrollable variables has been considered adaptive. In the present study, attributing either good or poor reading outcomes
to help at home turned out to be maladaptive. If insufficient help at home is
considered stable (unlike luck), then it is understandable why attributing poor
reading to insufficient help is associated with lower achievement. After all,
in many low-income families parents ability to help is stable in that they are
limited by their own educational background. What this means is that individual differences in parents reading ability may be related to their childrens
attributions involving the home. This is an important question for future
research especially as parents educational background is positively correlated
with income level (Ellis & Large, 1987).
ParentChild Attributions
Parents attributions were quite similar to childrens, with parents of high
achievers emphasizing childrens liking for reading and parents of low
achievers stressing childrens dislike of reading, luck, and help at home.
Perhaps the most important difference between parents and children was that
regardless of their childs achievement level, parents did not place differential
stress on their childrens ability or lack of it. Interestingly, however, when
parents attributions were related to childrens in the regression analyses,

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increments in parents emphasis on their childs ability were associated with

increments in childrens stress on that variable. Surprisingly, although parents
attributions to insufficient ability were not related to those attributions in
children, parents focus on external variables (e.g., luck, material) contributed
to childrens beliefs about their lack of ability. Miller (1995) has suggested
that parents may be extremely reluctant to implicate lack of ability as a
cause of their childrens poor performance because it reflects negatively onto
themselves. The present findings suggest that even if parents avoid attributions
to low ability, children may interpret parental stress on other causal variables
as reflecting their own insufficient ability.
Parent attributions were logically as well as statistically related to the
attributions of children. That is, in some instances there was a one-to-one
relation between parentchild attributions (e.g., luckluck). In other instances, childrens attributions to causes external to themselves were related
to parents attributions to external causes and lack of emphasis on internal
personal characteristics. These findings are extremely important for a number
of reasons. First, they demonstrate that strong links exist between parents
and childrens attributions. Second, they suggest that relations between parent
and child attributional beliefs may involve many-to-one (e.g., ability and
liking to ability) rather than one-to-one (e.g., ability to ability) mappings. The
findings do not, however, speak directly to causal relations between parent
and child attributions and achievement. Determining the exact nature of the
causal sequences within families is beyond the scope of this article. Clearly,
however, it is critical that future research ascertain the role that low-income
parents play in socializing attributional beliefs in their children. In that research, comparisons between single- versus two-parent families seem indicated. This is because 80% of the families in this study included two parents
and there is some evidence that children are likely to be more aware and
accepting of parents attributions in two- compared to one-parent homes
(Goodnow, 1992).
Finally, it is clear that both the students and their parents believed that
most of the causal variables were more influential for successful outcomes
(good reading) than for unsuccessful outcomes (poor reading). This pattern
is akin to the often observed outcome bias reported previously for children
(Lewis, 1989; Whitehead et al., 1987; Wigfield, 1988). Accordingly, it seems
that the causes included in this study, and in many other studies, provide a
much better explanation for students and parents beliefs about good than
poor reading. It is important to determine, in future research, if students and
their parents simply have less well developed beliefs about the causes of poor
versus good reading or if, in their beliefs about poor reading, they include
causal variables not tapped in studies to date. Because there is no compelling
reason to think that poor outcomes have different causal bases than good

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ones (Miller, 1995), it seems more likely that children and parents are less
inclined to embrace these causes for poor outcomes because they may be
reluctant to acknowledge, accept, or try to explain poor performance at all.
Developmental Differences
Grade level influenced student and parent attributions as well as the strength
of relations between them. First, for good reading, Grade 3 students endorsed
all the causes more than older students and parents of younger children
endorsed the contribution of help at home more than parents of older students.
Second, grade level had little effect on parents attributions but Grade-6 and
-9 students increasingly targeted their own personal characteristics as the
cause of poor reading. Third, relations between parentchild attributions were
stronger for older (Grades 6 and 9) than younger (Grade 3) students. This is
not surprising, as it is not until Grade 6 that childrens attributions attained
a more specific focus, one that more closely resembles adult attributional
patterns (Miller, 1995).
These findings support hypotheses about developmental differences in the
relative importance attached to the role of the self versus others in achievement
(e.g., Hiebert et al., 1984). Younger students may interpret help as a positive
strategy for improving their reading while older students may interpret it as
a reflection of their ability (Newman & Stevenson, 1990). Thus, the developmental differences in the importance attributed to help in this study may
reflect, in part, associated developmental differences in the cognitive interpretation of, and affective consequences associated with, getting help from others.
This same reasoning may account for the finding that attributions to the
home were more closely and negatively associated with achievement for older
students. That parents of older children saw the home as less important than
parents of younger children is not surprising. This is because curriculum
demands increase as grade level increases and because many parents of the
older students had not completed Grade 9 themselves. Thus, it seems likely
that they are limited in their ability to help.
As the students advanced through school, they took increasing responsibility for their own role in their poor reading. There is evidence that failure does
not influence younger childrens achievement beliefs, or their persistence, to
the same extent as older students (Stipek & MacIver, 1989). The present
findings indicate that one reason for this may be that younger childrens
explanations for poor performance are relatively comprehensive and are not
focused on explanations involving personal insufficiencies, explanations that
can have devastating effects on subsequent motivation and achievement (Wiener, 1994).
In contrast, the childs grade in school had little effect on parents attributions about poor reading. Miller (1995) has suggested that parents attributions

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for academic performance are based on their childs relative standing, that
is, how the child compares to others. Because relative standing as reflected
in marks at school may not change considerably with grade level, parents
attributions may be relatively stable. There is some evidence from longitudinal
studies that parents form their beliefs early in their childs school career and
that those beliefs continue to guide later thinking and behavior (Miller, 1995).
CONCLUSIONS AND EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

Our findings show that in extremely poor families, there is broad variation
in reading achievement and better readers exhibit the same adaptive attributional patterns as better readers from more affluent families. Furthermore,
while relatively few children from these homes attain excellence in reading,
those that do demonstrate the most positive beliefs of all. One implication of
these findings is that the link between socio-economic status and reading
achievement suffers from the classic third-variable problem often cited in the
context of correlational research. That is, reading achievement appears to be
associated with the same patterns of attributional processing regardless of
economic status. Perhaps, when attributional processing is partialled out of
the association between economic status and reading achievement, this latter
relationship will diminish.
Although the results from this study show that positive attributions and
high levels of reading achievement go hand in hand, it is not known whether
they develop concurrently or consecutively and, if consecutively, whether
good reading precedes positive beliefs or vice versa. Determining the answer
to this question holds not only theoretical importance but of course educational
significance. In the meantime, based on the current findings, the following
educational implications for low-income families seem warranted. First, in
our schools, reading instruction should include a focus on attributional processing with children encouraged to attribute good reading to their ability and
their liking for reading. Second, teaching attributional processing to children is
not enough. Because these childrens attributions are directly related to their
parents attributions, parental beliefs should also be targeted for intervention.
Family-based literacy programs with an attributional component would be an
obvious avenue to pursue here. We are not advocating an exclusive focus on
attributional training for children and parents, but simply that such training
be incorporated into programs designed to help children read better and to
help parents help their children. Finally, the promise of effective reading
interventions for children from low-income families is developmentally limited. That is, once children are underachieving in reading and have concluded
that they dislike reading or have insufficient ability to read well, their achievement and the accompanying beliefs are resistant to change (Stanovich, 1986).
Consequently, reading intervention, including attributional training, for par-

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ents and children should begin in the preschool and early school years before
these negative patterns are established.
APPENDIX
Students Causal Attribution Questions
Good Reading
1. When I do well at reading, it is usually because I worked hard.
2
3
4
5

not true

7
very true

2. When I do well at reading, it is usually because I am smart.

2
3
4
5

not true

7
very true

3. When I do well at reading, it is usually because I have a good teacher.

2
3
4
5

not true

7
very true

4. When I do well at reading, it is usually because I got help with reading at home.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

7
very true

5. When I do well at reading, it is usually because I like reading.

2
3
4
5

not true

7
very true

6. When I do well at reading, it is usually because I got lucky.

2
3
4
5

not true

7
very true

7. When I do well at reading, it is usually because the story/material is easy to read.

2
3
4
5
6

not true

very true

Poor Reading
8. When I do poorly at reading, it is usually because I have a bad teacher.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

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9. When I do poorly at reading, it is usually because I did not work hard enough.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

7
very true

10. When I do poorly at reading, it is usually because I do not like reading.

1
2
3
4
5
6
not true

7
very true

11. When I do poorly at reading, it is usually because I did not get help with the reading at
home.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
not true

very true

12. When I do poorly at reading, it is usually because the story/material is too hard.
1
2
3
4
5
6
not true

7
very true

13. When I do poorly at reading, it is usually because I am unlucky.

1
2
3
4
5

not true

7
very true

14. When I do poorly at reading, it is usually because I am not smart.

1
2
3
4
5

not true

7
very true

Parents Causal Attribution Questions

Good Reading
1. When your child does well at reading it is usually because s/he worked hard.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

7
very true

2. When your child does well at reading it is usually because s/he is intelligent.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

7
very true

3. When your child does well at reading it is usually because s/he has a good teacher.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

very true

4. When your child does well at reading it is usually because s/he got a lot of help with
reading at home.
1
2
3
4
5
6
not true

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5. When your child does well at reading it is usually because s/he really likes reading.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

very true

6. When your child does well at reading it is usually because the reading material/
assignment was very easy.
1
2
3
4
5
6
not true

7
very true

7. When your child does well at reading it is usually because s/he just got lucky.
2
3
4
5
6

not true

7
very true

Poor Reading
8. When your child does poorly at reading it is usually because s/he has a bad teacher.
2
3
4
5
6

not true
very true
9. When your child does poorly at reading it is usually because s/he did not work hard
enough.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
not true

very true

10. When your child does poorly at reading it is usually because s/he does not like reading.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
not true

very true

11. When your child does poorly at reading it is usually because s/he did not get enough help
at home with reading.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
not true

very true

12. When your child does poorly at reading it is usually because the reading material/
assignment was too hard.
1
2
3
4
5
6
not true

very true

13. When your child does poorly at reading it is usually because s/he was unlucky.
1
2
3
4
5
6
not true

7
very true

14. When your child does poorly at reading it is usually because s/he is not very intelligent.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
not true

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