Educational Psychology

Vol. 29, No. 5, August 2009, 603619

Cross-lagged associations between kindergarten teachers causal

attributions and childrens task motivation and performance
in reading
Katja Natalea*, Jaana Viljarantaa, Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanenb, Anna-Maija Poikkeusb
and Jari-Erik Nurmia
aDepartment of Psychology, University of Jyvskyl, P.O. Box 35, Jyvskyl, 40014, Finland;
bDepartment of Teacher Education, University of Jyvskyl, Jyvskyl, Finland

(Received 7 January 2009; final version received 7 July 2009)

Taylor and Francis
CEDP_A_416764.sgm

Educational
10.1080/01443410903165912
0144-3410
Original
Taylor
02009
00
NATALE@PSYKA.JYU.FI
KatjaRytkonen
000002009
&Article
Francis
(print)/1469-5820
Psychology
(online)

The present study investigated whether kindergarten teachers causal attributions

would predict childrens reading-related task motivation and performance, or
whether it is rather childrens motivation and performance that contribute to
teachers causal attributions. To investigate this, 69 children (five to six years old
at baseline) and their teachers were examined twice during the kindergarten year.
Teachers filled in a questionnaire measuring their causal attributions twice during
the kindergarten year. Information about the childrens reading-related task
motivation and performance was gathered at the beginning of and at the end of the
kindergarten year. The results showed that the higher the task motivation and
performance in reading the children showed, the more the teachers attributed their
success to ability and effort, and the less they attributed it to teachers help.
Teachers ability and effort attributions for success, in turn, predicted a high level
of childrens subsequent task motivation in reading. Moreover, teachers seldom
attributed high-achieving childrens failure to lack of ability or effort.
Keywords: teachers causal attributions; intrinsic motivation; task value;
performance in reading; kindergarten

Introduction
Teachers often ponder over why some students are doing poorly in some school
subjects, such as reading and mathematics, and, likewise, why some other students are
doing well at school. Causal attributions on such questions by teachers have been
found to arise early on during the childrens school career (Fennema, Peterson,
Carpenter, & Lubinski, 1990). Teachers perceptions of the causes of their pupils
academic successes and failures also impact on their emotional responses towards the
child (Butler, 1994; Clark & Artiles, 2000; Georgiou, Christou, Stavrindes, &
Panaoura, 2002; Graham, 1984, 1990; Hall, Villeme, & Burley, 1989; Reyna &
Weiner, 2001). As a result, children start to interpret teachers emotional responses as
cues of teachers possible causal attributions concerning their academic achievement
(Graham, 1984, 1990). This chain of teachers and childrens perceptions, causal attributions, and emotional responses may further influence childrens self-perceptions
concerning their major academic skills (Graham, 1984, 1990; Rosenholtz & Simpson,
*Corresponding author. Email: natale@psyka.jyu.fi
ISSN 0144-3410 print/ISSN 1469-5820 online
2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01443410903165912
http://www.informaworld.com

604

K. Natale et al.

1984). Although a considerable amount of research has been carried out on teachers
causal attributions, it contains many limitations. First, the majority of studies have
focused on childrens overall academic performance, and little is known about how
teachers causal attributions are associated with childrens reading performance.
Second, most previous studies have concerned teachers of older children (Holloway
& Hess, 1985) or teachers of various grade levels simultaneously (Clark, 1997; Clark
& Artiles, 2000; Cooper & Burger, 1980; Siegle & Reis, 1998). However, only a few
studies have examined teachers causal attributions concerning childrens achievement at the early stages of their school career (Fennema et al., 1990; Graham, 1984,
1990; Wigfield, Galper, Denton, & Seefeldt, 1999); for example, when they are struggling to acquire literacy or when children are still in kindergarten. Finally, only few
efforts have been made to examine cross-lagged associations between teachers causal
attributions and childrens academic task motivation and performance. Consequently,
the present study investigated the extent to which kindergarten teachers causal attributions would predict their students subsequent task motivation and performance in
reading, and the extent to which kindergarten childrens task motivation and performance would predict their teachers subsequent causal attributions.
Task motivation
There is a long tradition of research suggesting that childrens motivation plays an
important role in learning at school. One widely used framework in this research field
is students interest in different school subjects, such as literacy. Concepts like intrinsic
motivation (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991; Gottfried, 1985, 1990) and task
value (Eccles et al., 1983) have been used to refer to such interest in different academic
subjects. In this study we utilise the concept of task motivation in reading (see also
Aunola, Leskinen, & Nurmi, 2006; Nurmi & Aunola, 2005; Viljaranta, Lerkkanen,
Poikkeus, Aunola, & Nurmi, 2008), which refers to how much a child likes to do readingrelated tasks. The concept is similar to the interest aspect of task value (Eccles et al.,
1983), and consequently is more focused than the concepts of intrinsic motivation and
task-value.
Childrens motivation in a particular subject, such as learning literacy, can be
assumed to support their cognitive engagement in learning (Ryan & Deci, 2000). For
example, high levels of intrinsic motivation and subjective task-values are associated
with high levels of academic performance and achievement (for a review, see Eccles,
Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Murphy & Alexander, 2000). Similarly, reading-related
motivation has been shown to be associated with learning to read (Lepola, Salonen, &
Vauras, 2000; Wigfield et al., 1997) and improvement in reading (Ecalle, Gilbert, &
Magnan, 2006).
Previous research has also shown that task motivation begins to differentiate
across the various academic subjects early on in the school career (Eccles, Wigfield,
Harold, & Blumenfield, 1993; Nurmi & Aunola, 2005; Wigfield et al., 1997). Nurmi
and Aunola (2005), for example, identified on the basis of their motivation at the
beginning of primary school four different student groups: (a) students high in school
motivation, (b) students low in reading and writing motivation, (c) students low in
mathematics motivation, and (d) students high in mathematics motivation. Childrens
task motivation towards various school subjects seems also to decrease across the
school years (Jacobs, Lanza, Osgood, Eccles, & Wigfield, 2002; Wigfield et al.,
1997). These changes can be assumed to be due to the fact that, from their first school

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605

years, children are faced with an increasing amount of feedback on their performance
(Eccles, Roeser, Vida, Fredricks, & Wigfield, 2006; see also Stipek & Mac Iver,
1989).
Previous research on childrens task motivation has at least two limitations. First,
the majority of the research has been focused on the associations between older childrens motivation and academic achievement, and thus less is known about the role of
motivation in the early development of particular academic skills such as reading.
Second, few studies have examined the associations between teachers beliefs and
childrens task motivation. It might be assumed, however, that the ways in which
teachers explain and evaluate their students success in learning literacy have consequences for the development of their reading-related task motivation already, early on
in the academic career (Graham, 1984, 1990; Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1984).
Teachers causal attributions and childrens task motivation and performance
in reading
Teachers typically explain childrens academic success and failure by reference to
five different causes: ability/lack of ability, effort/lack of effort, task easiness/difficulty, and help/lack of help from teachers or parents (Burger, Cooper, & Good, 1982;
Clark & Artiles, 1990; Fennema et al., 1990; Georgiou et al., 2002; Hall et al., 1989;
Holloway & Hess, 1985; Natale, Viljaranta, Lerkkanen, Poikkeus, & Nurmi, submitted; Weiner, 1985, 1986). Teachers may, for example, think that a child succeeds in
learning to read because of his or her abilities, but fails because he or she does not
invest enough effort in practicing reading. Alternatively, teachers may think that a
child succeeds in reading-related tasks because of the help he or she gets from teacher,
but fails because the tasks are too difficult for him or her. A typical way to investigate
such causal attributions by teachers is to present a hypothetical situation concerning
the success or failure of a particular child, and then ask teachers to rate the importance
of different causes for the childs success and failure. This was also a method applied
in the present study.
Previous research among North American teachers has shown that childrens
academic performance is associated with teachers causal attributions. For example,
Holloway and Hess (1985) showed that when sixth-grade childrens performance was
high, teachers tended to attribute their success to their abilities, and avoid attributing
their success to external causes, such as help from teachers. In failure situations,
primary and secondary school teachers were shown to attribute high-achieving
childrens failure to lack of effort, whereas poorly achieving childrens failure was
typically attributed to lack of ability (Cooper & Burger, 1980). Previous studies have
also suggested some cultural differences in teachers causal attributions (Clark &
Artiles, 2000). For example, it has been found that effort attributions contribute more
to North American teachers emotional responses, whereas ability attributions contribute greater on Guatemalan teachers emotional responses towards the student (Clark
& Artiles, 2000).
However, since most previous studies have been cross-sectional, little is known
about the direction of the impact between teachers causal attributions and childrens
academic performance. There are, namely, two possibilities for such associations. On
the one hand, students reading performance may impact on their teachers causal attributions. On the other hand, teachers causal attributions may contribute to their pupils
performance, since teachers causal attributions are reflected in their emotional

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K. Natale et al.

responses towards the child (Graham, 1984, 1990) as well as in their classroom practices
and instruction.
Similarly, childrens task motivation may be reflected in their teachers causal
attributions (Clark, 1997; Reyna & Weiner, 2001). For example, teachers failure attributions to internal, stable, and uncontrollable properties, such as learning difficulties,
may associate with childrens negative perceptions of their competence as well as
their low academic motivation (Clark, 1997).
Some research has also found that boys success is usually attributed to ability and
girls success to effort, especially in mathematics (Fennema et al., 1990). Teachers also
perceive girls as working harder and producing higher quality work than boys (Siegle
& Reis, 1998). However, not all studies have found gender differences in teachers
causal attributions (Holloway & Hess, 1985). Consequently, the present study investigated further the impact of childrens gender on teachers causal attributions.
Finnish children start primary school with formal teaching one year later than in
many other countries, such as the United States. Before primary school, at the age of
six years, Finnish children participate in one year of kindergarten, which is equivalent
to kindergarten in the United States. Kindergarten is not compulsory, but almost all
children (98%) attend. In Finnish kindergarten there is no formal teaching of academic
skills, but children are encouraged to play with letters and numbers, and concepts
related to reading and mathematics. Kindergarten teachers follow a core curriculum,
which aims to create a playful learning environment for children (Kikas & Lerkkanen,
2008). One of the central areas of the curriculum is language and social interaction,
and kindergartens usually provide daily shared reading activities (by teachers) which
encourage childrens skill development before the formal instruction begins at
primary school (Lerkkanen, 2007).

Aims
The present study addressed the following research questions:
(1) Do kindergarten teachers causal attributions concerning childrens academic
success and failure predict childrens task motivation and performance in
reading?
(2) Do kindergarten childrens task motivation and performance in reading
predict their teachers causal attributions concerning their academic success
and failure?
(3) Do teachers causal attributions concerning childrens academic performance
vary with respect to childrens gender?

Method
Participants and procedure
The present study is a pilot (Poikkeus & Lerkkanen, 2005) of a large-scale study, the
First Steps Study. In this pilot study the participants were 69 kindergarten children (36
girls, 33 boys) and their teachers (N = 16, 15 females, and one male). Permission to
participate in the study was originally asked from the parents of 157 children, of
whom the parents of 139 children gave their consent. The children were five to six
years old (mean = 76 months, standard deviation (SD) = 3.53 months) at the baseline.

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607

The sample was homogeneous in terms of ethnicity and cultural background, and thus
representative of the school population in this part of Finland. The kindergarten group
size (N = 13) varied from five to 22 children. Six of the kindergartens were situated in
daycare centres and seven of them were situated in schools. Three of the larger groups
had two teachers.
Teachers answered a questionnaire concerning at least three (three to eight)
randomly selected children from their kindergarten group. Consequently, out of the
139 children whose parents gave their consent, 69 were assessed by their teachers.
Eighteen teachers were asked to participate in the pilot study, and 16 them agreed to
do so. Eleven of the teachers had a kindergarten teacher education, and five of them
had tertiary education. Teachers professional experience ranged from less than one
year to more than 15 years (Mode = more than 15 years). Both children and teachers
were recruited from a small semi-rural commune in Central Finland.
Information about the childrens task motivation and performance in reading was
gathered on two occasions: at the beginning (Time 1) and at the end (Time 4) of their
kindergarten year (i.e. in October 2005 and April 2006). Childrens performance in
reading was tested by the childrens kindergarten teacher in the kindergarten classroom and by a trained investigator in a private testing situation. Information about
childrens task motivation in reading was also gathered by a structured interview
conducted by a trained investigator.
Teachers were asked for their causal attributions by a mailed questionnaire on two
occasions, in November 2005 (Time 2), and in March 2006 (Time 3). All of the teachers
returned the questionnaires at both measurement times.

Measurements
Childrens measures
Reading performance. Childrens basic reading skills were measured on two occasions (Times 1 and 4) by two different subtests.
(1) A letter identification test asked children to name 29 uppercase letters. Scoring
was based on the number of correctly identified letters. At Time 1 and Time 4
children named on average 18 letters (mean = 17.91, SD = 9.23) and 25 letters
(mean = 24.69, SD = 6.33), respectively.
(2) The Reading Words test (Normaalikoulu, 1985) asked children to read aloud
a set of 20 words of increasing difficulty one word at a time, and then two
sentences. The difficulty was increased mainly by the fact that words became
longer (e.g. ja (and), is (dad), ikkuna (window), tulitikku (match),
kuhankeittj (golden oriole)). Testing continued until four successive
words/sentences were read incorrectly or were not attempted. One point was
scored for each word/sentence read correctly, yielding a maximum score of
20. At Time 1 and Time 4 children were able to read aloud on average three
words (mean = 3.25, SD = 6.67) and nine words (mean = 8.71, SD = 8.61),
respectively.
The two subtests were standardised and a sum score was calculated for childrens
reading performance for each measurement time. The Cronbach alpha reliabilities for
the reading performance variables were 0.64 (Time 1) and 0.74 (Time 4).

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Task motivation in reading. Childrens task motivation in reading was assessed on

two occasions (Times 1 and 4) in an interview using the Task Value Scale for Children
(Nurmi & Aunola, 1999, 2005; see also Aunola et al., 2006). The scale consisted of
items measuring childrens task motivation in reading (i.e. interest in or liking for a
letter-related task). The items were How much do you like letter-related tasks?;
How much do you like doing letter-related tasks at school? and How much do you
like doing letter-related tasks at home?. In the measurement procedure, the children
were first read the question. They were then shown a set of five faces drawn to depict
an evaluative scale running from very positive to very negative. The children were
then asked to point out the picture that most describes their liking for letter-related
tasks (picture of unhappy face/1 = I do not like them at all/I dislike doing those tasks;
picture of happy face/5 = I like them very much/I really enjoy doing those tasks). A
sum score for reading-related task motivation was calculated as the mean of the three
items (Time 1: mean = 3.39, SD = 1.07; Time 4: mean = 3.72, SD = 1.06). The
Cronbach alpha reliabilities at Times 1 and 4 were 0.62 and 0.71, respectively.
Teachers measures
Teachers causal attributions. Teachers were asked twice during the childrens
kindergarten year (Times 2 and 3) for causal attributions concerning the childrens
academic success and failure. Four children were randomly selected for each kindergarten teacher. The teachers were then asked to answer a set of questions concerning
each target child. The questions focused on teachers causal attributions for success
(e.g. If the child does well at school, it is probably because ) and for failure (If
the child does not do well in his/her school assignments, it is probably because )
of the target child. Teachers answered these questions using a five-point Likert scale
(the anchors were 1 = totally disagree, and 5 = totally agree) to rate the importance of
ability/lack of ability, effort/lack of effort, task easiness/difficulty, teachers help/lack
of help, and parents help/lack of help in the target childrens academic success/failure. During the fall term of the kindergarten year (Time 2), the questions for teachers
causal attributions were domain specific (i.e. given for mathematics and reading separately). However, as the correlations for teachers domain-specific attributions were
relatively high (varying from 0.79 to 0.95), a sum score was calculated for each causal
attribution type across these two domains. During the spring term (Time 3), teachers
were asked for their causal attributions concerning childrens overall success and
failure. The internal consistency coefficients (Cronbachs alpha) for teachers causal
attributions at Time 2 varied from 0.88 and 0.95 for success attributions, and 0.91 and
0.98 for failure attributions, and at Time 3 from 0.87 to 0.94 for success attributions,
and 0.92 and 0.97 for failure attributions.
Analysis strategy
As the teacher-report data had a hierarchical structure that might distort the results at
the level of children, the analyses were carried out by path modelling using the
Complex method (Muthn & Muthn, 19982007). This method estimates the model
at the level of the whole sample but corrects the distortions in estimations caused by
the clustering of observations (i.e. between-level variation due to differences between
teachers). In addition to the Complex method, the missing data method (Muthn &

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609

Muthn, 19982007) was also used in the analyses. Because the distributions of the
variables were skewed, the model parameters were estimated using the maximum
likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (MLR) (Muthn & Muthn, 1998
2007). For all of the models, goodness-of-fit was evaluated using five indicators: 2,
Bentlers (1990) comparative fit index (CFI), the TuckerLewis Index (TLI), the root
mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardised root mean square
residual (SRMR). According to Hu and Bentler (1999), values above 0.95 for the TLI
and CFI, values below 0.06 for the RMSEA, and a value close to 0.08 for the SRMR
can be considered as indicating good fit between the hypothesised model and the
observed data.

Results
Teachers causal attributions
The intraclass correlations for teachers causal attributions concerning childrens
success showed that 152% of the variance in the observed variables was due to overall
differences between teachers (between-effect), and the rest was due to inter-individual
differences among children (within-effect) (Natale et al., 2009). The results for
teachers causal attributions concerning childrens failure showed that 2480% of the
variance in the observed variables was due to similarity in teachers causal attributions
(between-teachers effect), and the rest was due to individual differences among
children (within-children effect) (see also Natale et al., 2009).

Teachers causal attributions and childrens task motivation and performance

in reading
To examine the cross-lagged relations between teachers causal attributions concerning
childrens academic outcomes, and childrens task motivation and performance in reading, path models were constructed separately for each causal attribution. The models
were constructed using the Complex method (Muthn & Muthn, 19982007). The
tested models included stability coefficients for teachers causal attributions and for
childrens task motivation and performance in reading as well as paths from childrens
previous performance and task motivation to subsequent teachers causal attributions.
Furthermore, paths from teachers causal attributions to childrens subsequent performance and task motivation were included. All of the models were saturated. To identify
the final models, all of the statistically non-significant paths were set to zero. In all of
the tested models, childrens performance in reading and teachers causal attributions,
with one exception (teachers task difficulty attribution for success), showed substantial
stability.

Causal attributions for success

Teachers ability attributions. The model for teachers ability attributions for success
fitted the data moderately (Table 1 and Figure 1). The results showed that both childrens performance in reading and their task motivation at the beginning of kindergarten
(Time 1) predicted teachers ability attributions later on during the kindergarten year
(Time 2 and Time 3). The better the children performed in reading-related tasks and
the higher the task motivation they showed, the more the teachers attributed their

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K. Natale et al.

Table 1. Goodness-of-fit summary of the models for teachers causal attributions for success
and failure.
2

Degrees of
freedom

CFI

TLI

RMSEA

SRMR

Success
Ability
Effort
Task
Teachers help
Parents help

12.37
2.34
4.96
8.46
8.38

8
7
9
8
10

0.14
0.93
0.84
0.39
0.59

0.95
1.00
1.00
0.99
1.00

0.91
1.11
1.14
0.99
1.05

0.09
0.00
0.00
0.03
0.00

0.08
0.03
0.07
0.06
0.06

Failure
Ability
Effort
Task
Teachers help
Parents help

4.71
8.69
2.92
6.83
7.32

9
8
8
9
9

0.86
0.37
0.94
0.66
0.60

1.00
0.99
1.00
1.00
1.00

1.09
0.99
1.14
1.06
1.04

0.00
0.04
0.00
0.00
0.00

0.04
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.06

Model

Note: CFI = Comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis Index; RMSEA = root mean error of
approximation; SRMR = Standardized root-mean-square residual.

success to ability. Moreover, teachers ability attributions during kindergarten (Time

2) prospectively predicted childrens task motivation at the end of kindergarten (Time
4). The more teachers attributed the childrens success to ability, the higher the subsequent task motivation the children showed.
Figure*p
Note:
1. < 0.05,
Standardised
**p < 0.01,
estimates
***p <
for0.001.
the model of teachers ability attribution for success and childrens task motivation and performance in reading.

Teachers effort attributions. The teachers effort attributions for the success model
fitted the data well (Table 1 and Figure 2). The results showed that the higher the task
motivation in reading the children showed (Time 1), the more their teachers attributed
their success to effort (Time 2). Further, the more the teachers attributed childrens
success to effort (Time 2), the higher the task motivation the children showed later on
(Time 4). Moreover, the more the teachers attributed childrens success to effort
(Time 3), the poorer the performance the children showed later on (Time 4).
Figure*p
Note:
2. < 0.05,
Standardised
**p < 0.01,
estimates
***p <
for0.001.
the model of teachers effort attribution for success and childrens task motivation and performance in reading.

Figure 1. Standardised estimates for the model of teachers ability attribution for success and
childrens task motivation and performance in reading.
Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

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611

Figure 2. Standardised estimates for the model of teachers effort attribution for success and
childrens task motivation and performance in reading.
Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

Teachers task easiness attributions. The model for teachers task easiness attributions for success fitted the data well (Table 1). The results showed that the more the
teachers attributed childrens success to the easiness of the tasks at Time 2, the poorer
the childrens task motivation in reading was later on at Time 4 (standardised estimate
= 0.28, p < 0.05). Further, the more the teachers attributed childrens success to the
easiness of the tasks at Time 3, the poorer the performance in reading the children
showed later on at Time 4 (standardised estimate = 0.23, p < 0.05).
Teachers help attributions. The model for teachers help attributions for success
fitted the data well (Table 1). The results showed that the better the children
performed in reading at Time 1, the less their teachers attributed their success to teachers help at Time 2 (standardised estimate = 0.33, p < 0.05). Further, the more the
teachers attributed childrens success to teachers help at Time 3, the lower the task
motivation the children showed in reading at Time 4 (standardised estimate = 0.16,
p < 0.05).
Teachers parental help attributions. The model for teachers parental help attributions fitted the data well (Table 1). Besides stabilities in teachers parental help attributions, and childrens performance and task motivation in reading, no other
associations between the variables emerged.

Causal attributions for failure

Teachers ability attributions. The model for teachers ability attributions for failure
fitted the data well (Table 1). The results showed that the better the children performed
in reading-related tasks at Time 1, the less their teachers attributed their failure to lack
of ability at Time 2 (standardised estimate = 0.38, p < 0.001).
Teachers effort attributions. The model for teachers effort attributions for failure
fitted the data well (Table 1 and Figure 3). The results showed that the higher the
performance the children showed in reading (Time 1), the less the teachers attributed

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K. Natale et al.

Figure 3. Standardised estimates for the model of teachers effort attribution for failure and
childrens task motivation and performance in reading.
Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

their failure to lack of effort (Time 2). Moreover, the more the teachers attributed
childrens failure to lack of effort (Time 2), the lower the task motivation in reading
the children showed later on (Time 4).
Figure*p
Note:
3. < 0.05,
Standardised
**p < 0.01,
estimates
***p <
for0.001.
the model of teachers effort attribution for failure and childrens task motivation and performance in reading.

Teachers task difficulty attributions. The model for teachers task difficulty attributions fitted the data well (Table 1). The results showed that the higher the performance the children showed in reading at Time 1, the less their teachers attributed
their failure to task difficulty at Time 2 (standardised estimate = 0.28, p < .01).
Moreover, the higher the task motivation the children showed in reading at Time 1,
the less the teachers attributed their failure to task difficulty at Time 4 (standardised
estimate = 0.29, p < 0.01).
Teachers help attributions. The model for teachers help attributions fitted the data
well (Table 1). The results showed that the more the teachers attributed childrens
failure to lack of teachers help at Time 3, the poorer the task motivation in reading
the children showed at Time 4 (standardised estimate = 0.23, p < 0.05).
Teachers parental help attributions. The model for teachers parental help attributions
fitted the data well (Table 1). The results showed that the more the teachers attributed
the childrens failure to lack of parental help at Time 3, the lower the task motivation
in reading the children showed at Time 4 (standardised estimate = 0.38, p < 0.001).
In order to examine the possible gender differences in teachers causal attributions,
and in childrens reading-related task motivation and performance, all of the models
were also carried out by controlling for the childrens gender as a predictive variable
for the initial level of teachers causal attributions (Time 2) and childrens readingrelated task motivation and performance (Time 1). All of the models remained the
same, with one exception: teachers attributed boys failure more often to lack of effort
(Time 2) than girls failure (standardised estimate = 0.29, p < 0.05).
Discussion
The present study investigated the cross-lagged associations between how kindergarten
teachers attributed the causes of their students academic outcomes and how students

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613

task motivation and performance in reading developed at the very beginning of the
childrens school career. This is a period when children start acquiring their first
academic skills and when they may be assumed to be particularly sensitive to teachers
responses concerning their academic achievement (Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1984). The
result showed, on the one hand, that childrens performance and task motivation in reading contributed to their teachers causal attributions: the higher the task motivation and
performance in reading the children showed, the more the teachers attributed their
success to internal causes, such as ability or effort, and the less they attributed it to
external causes, such as teachers help. On the other hand, teachers causal attributions
also predicted childrens task motivation in reading: the more the teachers attributed
their students success to ability and effort, the higher the childrens subsequent task
motivation in reading was later on.
Childrens task motivation and performance in reading predict teachers
causal attributions
The results of the present study suggest, first, that childrens academic performance
seems to provide a basis for how teachers think about the causes of childrens
academic outcomes. For example, the higher the performance in reading the children
exhibited, the more teachers attributed their success to internal causes, such as ability,
and avoided attributing their success to external causes, such as teachers help. Similar
results have been found in previous studies (Cooper & Burger, 1980; Holloway &
Hess, 1985; Natale et al., 2009). Our results add to the existing literature by showing
that also childrens reading-related task motivation contributed to teachers causal
attributions: when children were highly motivated in reading-related tasks, teachers
tended to attribute their success to ability and effort. These results may be due to the
fact that when children show high task motivation and interest towards the tasks they
are performing, teachers have more confidence in childrens achievement, and tend to
attribute childrens success to child-related characteristics (ability and effort). It is also
possible that these findings reflect the accuracy of teachers perceptions (Wigfield et
al., 1999): children who are highly motivated usually invest high effort in the tasks at
hand and also perform well (Aunola et al., 2006; Hulleman, Durik, Schweigert, &
Harackiewicz, 2008).
Second, the results showed that the higher the performance in reading children
showed, the less likely teachers were to attribute their failure to lack of ability and
effort, or to external task difficulty. These results are only partly in line with some
previous studies that have shown teachers tend to attribute high-achieving childrens
failure to lack of effort and avoid attributing it to lack of ability (Cooper & Burger,
1980). The results of the present study are, however, in line with the above-mentioned
findings, suggesting that when childrens performance is high, teachers perceive them
as having high ability. Thus, teachers may have confidence in highly achieving
childrens skills also when such children are facing failure, and moreover think that
children who show high performance do not fail because of lack of ability or effort,
or because the tasks are too difficult for them. Similarly, when children showed high
task motivation in reading, teachers typically avoided attributing their failure to task
difficulty. These results may also reflect the play-orientation of Finnish kindergartens
(Kikas & Lerkkanen, 2008). It is possible that when children face failure in kindergarten, teachers do not yet encourage them to improve their future achievement strongly
by emphasising the role of effort. The findings of the present study are different from

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those of previous studies in the field that have shown that, when explaining academic
failures, teachers and parents tend to encourage children to perform better in the future
by attributing failure to lack of effort (Yee & Eccles, 1988; Weiner, 1994a, 1994b).
Teachers causal attributions impact childrens reading-related performance and
task motivation
The results of the present study showed also that the kinds of causal attributions teachers form concerning childrens achievement play a role in childrens literacy acquisition. For example, the more the teachers reported effort attributions for a childs
success, the less the childrens subsequent reading-related performance increased.
These results may reflect the fact that children often perceive ability and effort as
compensatory causes of achievement: the higher ones effort, the lower ones
perceived ability, and vice versa (Graham, 1990). Thus, it is possible that if teachers
emphasise the role of effort in success with certain children, this may in the long run
lead these children to feel less competent, which, in turn, may lead them to perform
less well. It is also possible that emphasising the role of effort may increase overoptimism in childrens self-concept of ability, which may then lead children to overestimate their skills and not be able to choose tasks that would be optimal for their
learning (see also Rytknen, Aunola, & Nurmi, 2007). Further, it was found that the
more the teachers attributed childrens success to external causes, such as task
easiness, the poorer the performance the children showed later on. This result may be
due to the fact that when teachers attribute childrens success to external causes, they
are not giving the credit for their success to the children themselves, which may lead
children to feel that they do not have control over their own achievement. This may
have a detrimental effect on childrens reading performance later on.
The results showed further that teachers causal attributions also had consequences
on childrens reading-related task motivation. First, the more the teachers attributed
childrens success to ability and effort, the more the children were interested in reading later on. This result suggests that teachers encouragement of children to achieve
well by emphasising the role of the childrens own abilities and effort seem to promote
their task motivation (see also Weiner, 1994b). The results showed also that the more
the teachers attributed childrens success to external causal attributions (e.g. task
easiness and teachers help), the lower the level of reading-related task motivation the
children showed later on. Overall, these results are in line with the theory of causal
attributions according to which internal rather than external attributions for success
promote learning and achievement (Weiner, 1992).
The results showed further that when teachers attributed childrens failure to
lack of effort, childrens reading-related task motivation decreased. This result may
reflect the way teachers communicate their attributions to their pupils. It has been
found in previous studies that when teachers attribute pupils failure to lack of
effort, this may be interpreted as a negative feedback by the child (Graham, 1984,
1990). Such interpretation may then decrease childrens motivation. Young children
may also perceive teachers attributions of lack of effort as a sign that the child is
not able enough (Graham, 1990; see also Nicholls, 1978). This may further
decrease their perceptions of competence and task motivation. These are interesting
results as previous studies have suggested that attributing failure to lack of effort is
beneficial for learning (Weiner, 1992). In this view, attributing failure to lack of
effort not only lays the responsibility for failure on the child but also gives the child

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615

a possibility to succeed better in the future (see also Yee & Eccles, 1988; Weiner,
1994b).
Also teachers failure attributions to external causes, such as lack of help from
teachers or parents, led to low level of childrens task motivation in reading. One
reason for this result may be that when childrens failure is attributed to external
causes that they cannot control, such as help from teachers or parents, children feel
that they cannot do anything themselves to improve their future performance (Weiner,
1992). This, in turn, may lower their learning motivation and interest in performing
the tasks in question.
The results of the present study showed that teachers attributions for boys and
girls success and failure were similar during their kindergarten year. This result
conflicts with some previous findings that have suggested teachers attribute boys and
girls achievement to different causes (Fennema et al., 1990; Siegle & Reis, 1998).
One explanation for this discrepancy is that previous studies have typically examined
children who have already started their formal education at school (Fennema et al.,
1990; Siegle & Reis, 1998). It is possible that gender differences in teachers causal
attributions become stronger when children enter primary school, as typically occurs
in parents causal attributions (Eccles, Jacobs, & Harold, 1990; Jaworski & Hubert,
1994). Only one gender difference was found in the present study: teachers attributed
boys failure more often than girls failure to lack of effort. It has also been found
previously that teachers often perceive girls as hard working and putting lot of effort
into their school work (Fennema et al., 1990; Siegle & Reis, 1998). However, it is also
possible that the results of the present study reflect cultural differences in teachers
causal attributions (Holloway & Hess, 1985). For example, the socialisation of
achievement-related gender differences may be smaller in Finland than in North
America, where most of the previous studies have been conducted (Fennema et al.,
1990; Holloway & Hess, 1985). Cultural differences may also impact on the ways in
which teachers attribute childrens academic success and failure (Clark & Artiles,
2000). For example, in the United States, control over ones outcomes and individual
effort are highly valued (Clark & Artiles, 2000), and therefore may also influence
teachers causal attributions (Clark, 1997; Clark & Artiles, 2000; Ho, 2004). Crosscultural studies among parents, in turn, have shown that for Finnish parents it is especially important that their children develop confidence in their own abilities (Tulviste
& Ahtonen, 2007). Thus, it is possible that teachers cultural background influences
the ways they attribute childrens academic success and failure.
The results showed that kindergarten teachers of the present study did not differentiate their causal attributions with respect to different domains; that is, reading and
mathematics. The correlations between teachers causal attributions related to reading
and mathematics performance were high. This result may be due to the childrens age.
It is possible that teachers begin to differentiate their causal attributions more as the
children grow older, and formal education starts in primary school.
Limitations
There are several limitations that should be taken into consideration when generalising the findings of the present study. First, the kindergarten teachers showed considerable variation in their causal attributions concerning childrens academic
outcomes, although due to the small number of teachers we were unable to study this
in detail. It is possible, however, that teachers attributions reflect other personal

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characteristics of teachers that were not studied here, such as their self-efficacy
beliefs and values. For example, it has been found previously that teachers with high
self-efficacy beliefs are more confident that they can influence students learning and
more willing to share the responsibility for childrens academic failures compared
with teachers with low self-efficacy (Georgiou et al., 2002; Tschannen-Moran,
Woolfolk, & Hoy, 1998). Second, the results obtained largely represent causal attributions of female teachers rather than teachers in general. Previous research has,
however, shown that especially failure situations evoke gender differences in male
and female teachers causal attributions (Bennett & Bennett, 1994). Consequently, in
future studies it would be important to study teacher-related gender differences in
their causal attributions. Third, teachers causal attributions and childrens readingrelated task motivation and performance were each measured only twice during the
childrens kindergarten year. In addition, the reliabilities for childrens task motivation and reading performance variables were somewhat low, which might have
influenced the results. Fourth, all of the participants in the study were from a small
semi-rural commune in Central Finland, which may have influenced the results to
some extent. A larger study would be needed to confirm the present results. Fifth, it
is also possible that that childrens maturity, which was not studied here, also played
a part in teachers perceptions of their abilities (Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1984). For
example, kindergarten teachers may perceive more mature children as having higher
level abilities. Finally, it has also been found previously that teachers causal attributions vary by culture (Clark & Artiles, 2000; Ho, 2004). Thus, it is possible that the
findings of this study would have turned out to be different in some other sociocultural context.
Conclusions
The results of the present study reveal that how teachers explain childrens achievement has consequences on childrens reading-related task motivation and performance
already in kindergarten. When teachers attributed childrens success to internal
causes, such as ability and effort, childrens subsequent task motivation in reading
increased. Attributing childrens success to external causes, in turn, decreased
childrens reading-related task motivation and performance. In addition, the results
showed that childrens reading-related performance and task motivation contributed
to teachers causal attributions. When childrens performance and task motivation in
reading was high, teachers attributed their success typically to internal causes, such
as ability and effort, and avoided using external attributions, such as teachers help.
These results suggest that childrens properties influence teachers causal attributions,
which, in turn, may further show in the teacherstudent interaction (Graham, 1984,
1990). Overall these results suggest that giving children the credit for success is a
beneficial strategy in seeking to promote their future achievement.
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