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Do learning difficulties differentiateelementary teachers attributionalpatterns for students academicfailure? A comparison between Greekregular and special education teachersAnastasia Vlachoua, Dimitra Eleftheriadoua & PanayiotaMetallidouba Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Volos,Greeceb School of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,Thessaloniki, GreecePublished online: 20 Aug 2013.

To cite this article: Anastasia Vlachou, Dimitra Eleftheriadou & Panayiota Metallidou (2014)Do learning difficulties differentiate elementary teachers attributional patterns for studentsacademic failure? A comparison between Greek regular and special education teachers, EuropeanJournal of Special Needs Education, 29:1, 1-15, DOI: 10.1080/08856257.2013.830440

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Do learning difficulties differentiate elementary teachersattributional patterns for students academic failure? Acomparison between Greek regular and special education teachers

Anastasia Vlachoua*, Dimitra Eleftheriadoua and Panayiota Metallidoub

aDepartment of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece; bSchool ofPsychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

(Received 2 October 2012; final version received 1 July 2013)

This study aimed to (a) investigate whether the presence of learning difficulties(LD) in primary school children differentiates Greek teachers attributionalpatterns, emotional responses, expectations and evaluative feedback for thechildrens academic failures and (b) to examine possible differences between reg-ular and special education teachers ratings. A total of 265 teachers (163 regular& 102 special teachers), were asked to rate eight vignettes about childrens diffi-culties. The description of each vignette provided three types of information: thepresence or absence of LD, a statement of students ability (high/low ability) andeffort expenditure (high/low effort). For the purposes of this study, the analysisfocused only on the existence or absence of Learning Difficulties (LD/NLD).The results of the study indicate that the label of LD differentiates teachers attri-butions, emotions and future expectancies of students failure. Both groups ofteachers (regular and special education) reported lower stability andcontrollability attributions for students with LD than for students without LD. Atthe same time, however, special education teachers view student difficulties asmore manageable, and their responses convey less stable and uncontrollableattributions as compared to regular teachers. The effect of teachers gender wasnot found significant in most of the cases. Correlations among teachers ratingsshowed that the two groups of teachers seem to use a different attributionschema towards failure depending on the presence or absence of LD. Implica-tions from the findings and future recommendations are also presented.

Keywords: attributional patterns; inclusive education regular and specialteachers; students with learning difficulties

Introduction

This study focuses on the attributions that teachers, both regular and special, use inexplaining students with and without learning difficulties (LD) failure in achieve-ment settings. Attributions are special kinds of beliefs through which a person mayexplain every days reality in a causal fashion (Woodcock and Vialle 2011). One ofthe most influential cognitivemotivational theoretical frameworks in achievementresearch is Weiners (1985) attribution theory. Weiner has proposed a three-dimensional taxonomy of attributions based on three criteria: locus of causality(internal or external to the acting person), stability (stable or unstable over time) and

*Corresponding author. Email: anavlachou@uth.gr

2013 Taylor & Francis

European Journal of Special Needs Education, 2014Vol. 29, No. 1, 115, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2013.830440

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mailto:anavlachou@uth.grhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2013.830440

controllability (controllable or uncontrollable by the individual himself/herself).Furthermore, Weiner (1985) has indicated four general causes of success or failurein achievement-related situations: ability (internal, stable, uncontrollable), effort(internal, unstable, controllable), task difficulty (external, stable, uncontrollable) andluck (external, unstable, uncontrollable).

Each of the above dimensions is postulated to have different consequences notonly for achievement outcomes but for future expectancies, emotional reactions tosuccess or failure, intensity of effort and persistence in the face of obstacles as well(see also: Pintrich and Schunk 1996). The locus of causality dimension concernswhether a cause is being internal (ability, effort) or external (task difficulty, luck) tothe individual and affects the individuals perception of personal competence. Thestability dimension has been related to expectancy of success or failure in future out-comes while the controllability dimension is linked with responsibility, evaluativefeedback and emotional reactions such as liking, anger, pity or sympathy (Clark andArtilles 2000). For example, a student who ascribes the failure in a math exam tolow aptitude (internal) may lower his/her self-esteem, and feel helplessness andshame. Eventually, s/he may withdraw the expectation of future success and showresigned behaviour (Woodcock and Jiang 2013).

It is important, however, to mention that attributional principles are applied eitherin contexts that are self-directed [intrapersonal perspective], as when an individual(i.e. student) attempts to understand his/her own behaviour, or in other-directed con-texts [interpersonal], such as when a teacher attempts to interpret a students class-room performance. In fact, in academic-related settings, teachers use interpersonaltheory in order to explain students current outcomes and predict future successes/failures. Thus, we believe that research on teachers attributions of childrens aca-demic performance may offer us a basis for predicting how they will respond to theinstructional outcomes of their students, especially those with LD.

Teachers attributions

Attributional research has shown that teachers achievement-related attributions mayinfluence their perceptions for students competencies, their expectations of achieve-ment outcomes and their subsequent feedback practices (Babad 2005; Hareli andHess 2008; Reyna 2000). Attributions may also influence teachers behaviour andinteraction patterns, especially with pupils experiencing difficulties in the academicdomain (Georgiou et al. 2002). In particular, ability and effort have been identifiedas the principle perceived causes of individual success or failure. Ability has beencharacterised as consisting of aptitude and/or learned skills, whereas effort as thelevel of exertion applied to a situation, either temporarily or over time (for an exten-sive analysis, see Clark 1997). When failure is ascribed to low ability, it is usuallyseen as resulting from a fixed characteristic over which the individual does not havevolitional control, whereas failure due to lack of effort is viewed as more changeableand, thereby, under the individuals control. It seems that teachers reactions areinfluenced by the degree to which they perceive the student as able to control partic-ular outcomes. For instance, teachers may feel anger toward a child whom they per-ceive as having failed an important test due to lack of effort, particularly if the childis of high ability, yet they feel pity toward a child who has failed because of his/herlow ability. Thus, teachers may punish the low-effort child more and reward him/herless but at the same time they may reward the low-ability child more and punish

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him/her less. Failure due to causes that are viewed as stable (i.e. low ability) mayalso result in a high expectation that failure will occur in future attempts. This rela-tionship might be circular in nature, since teachers prior expectations can influencetheir determination of the cause of an outcome, thereby affecting future expectations(Clark 1997).

In addition, teachers affective cues followed by a students success or failure mayhave a significant influence on a students perception of causality over the case.Weiner, Graham, Stem, and Lawson (1982) studied affectattribution relations andfound that sympathy and ability, as well as frustration and effort are positively corre-lated (as quoted in Woodcock and Jiang 2012). For instance, a student who receivessympathy from the teacher may attribute his/her failure to low ability (internal, stableand uncontrollable) and interpret the affect as a low expectation from the teacher. Alter-natively, a student who receives frustration from the teacher may attribute the failure tolow effort (internal, unstable and controllable) and interpret the affect as a highexpectation from the teacher. These, in turn, can influence students motivation andachievement strategies. In particular, when continual sympathy is paid by teachers, stu-dents long-term motivation may be negatively impacted; as they see it as a signal thatteachers believe they are incapable of success (see Woodcock and Jiang 2012).

In general, there is a serious bulk of research that has shown the importance ofteachers attributions in students motivational and academic performance (i.e.Babad 2005; Hareli and Hess 2008; Pintrich and Schunk 1996; Roberston 2000;Tollefson and Chen 1988). Most of the research, however, refers to typically devel-oped students while there is a dearth of studies on teachers attributions for studentswith LD and on the extent to which different teacher groups (i.e. general and specialeducation teachers) use the same attributions about learners, especially the ones withdifficulties.

Teachers attributions towards students with LD

Clark (1997) has conducted a quite influential study by examining teachers attribu-tional patterns towards students with and without learning difficulties (LD/NLD).She found that LD may affect the ability and effort-related attributional responses ofAmerican regular education teachers (RET). Specifically, teachers rewarded more,felt less anger and held higher expectations of future failure for students with LDthan their peers without LD, whereas they demonstrated the least anger, greatest pityand highest reward to the low-ability, high-effort students with LD. Similar findingshave been reached by Tollefson and Chens (1988) research with K-12 teachers andGeorgiou et al. (2002) research with elementary teachers in Cyprus.

In a more recent study, Woodcock and Vialle (2011) found that Australian pre-service teachers held a negative attribution style towards students with LD. Namely,they perceived these students as lacking ability in comparison to others in the class.They tend to respond to the failure of students with LD through a negative attribu-tion style (see also Waheeda and Grainger 2002), where failure is attributed to aninternal and uncontrollable cause, that of ability. Moreover, they judge the low-achieving students with LD more negatively than the low-achieving students withoutLD, by basing their judgement on the LD label (Tournaki 2003). Thus, it can besuggested that the attributional cues that teachers convey to students with LD arethat they have lower ability than their peers without LD and should expect lessachievement (Woodcock and Jiang 2012). Despite the consistency of the above

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findings, it is important to mention that almost all of the above studies have beenconducted in Western, Anglo-speaking societies and refer mainly to RET.

Clark and Artiles (2000), however, have indicated that the beliefs and values ofindividuals from different cultures can influence the perceived controllability ofcauses, which results in differing psychological responses to an outcome. They havealso suggested that the way individual cultures define ability, effort and control mayplay a crucial role in the formation of attributional schemata. For example,Woodcock and Jiang (2013), found that the Chinese teachers perceptions about LDstatus are less influential than effort and ability to academic outcomes. Thus, thebehavioural responses toward the students indirectly inform them that expectationsare high, and they have the potential to achieve through hard work, even under thecondition of LD.

In addition to the cultural dimension, another parameter that should be taken intoconsideration in attribution formation, especially as far as students with LD are con-cerned, is the role that special teachers play in implementing inclusive policies.Studies comparing different teachers groups suggest that special teachers attitudestowards learners with identified difficulties are more encouraging, and show moreunderstanding and tolerance of learner problems than mainstream teachers (Brook,Watemberg, and Geva 2000). Special teachers rather than other groups of teachersare also more likely to focus their work on modifying their teaching strategies tooptimise the learning environment for individuals (Woolfson, Grant, and Campell2007). Further, Woolfson and Grant (2005) and Woolfson et al. (2007) found thatRET and special education teachers (SET) use different attributions for studentsdifficulties; that is, special teachers view student difficulties as manageable, whileRET attribute LD to internal, stable and uncontrollable factors (see also Soulis andTouroutoglou 2007).

In conjunction to the above, research has indicated that regular teachers areprone to choose classes that include children with different cultural, ethnic, linguisticand/or religious backgrounds rather than the ones where children with LD areincluded (Coutsocostas and Alborz 2010). But, students with LD constitute the larg-est group of children with special educational needs who are educated in regulareducation settings. In some cases, many of these students are placed in regular clas-ses with or without ancillary support services from special education personnel. Inother cases, children receive special support services for some hours of their instruc-tional day in resource room settings from special education teachers. Thus, the wayin which both types of teachers regular and special perceive the achievement ofchildren with LD in comparison to that of their peers without LD is of great signifi-cance for promoting more inclusive practices (Buttner and Hasselhorn 2011).

The present study

In the light of the above, the aim of this study was twofold: (a) to investigatewhether the presence of LD in primary school children differentiates Greek teachersattributional patterns, emotional responses, expectations and evaluative feedback forthe childrens academic failures and (b) to examine possible differences betweenRET and SET ratings.

For the purposes of the present study, two groups of teachers were participated,RET and SET. SET worked in pull-out programs operating within regular educationsettings. Teachers were given Clarks (1997) vignettes about learners with different

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learning profiles according to their ability and effort expenditure. They were askedto imagine a situation in which each of these students failed in a significant schooltest. Half of the hypothetical students were characterised as having LD and requiringspecial education support while the other half as not having LD. Teachers wereasked to rate their attributions for students failure, their emotional responses, theirexpectations for future failure and the feedback they would give (a more detaileddescription of the vignettes and teachers ratings is given in the Method section).

As regards the first aim of the study, the presence of LD was expected to differ-entiate Greek teachers attributional patterns, emotional responses, expectations andevaluative feedback for the childrens academic failure. According to previous evi-dence, it was expected that teachers would respond to the failure of students withLD through a negative attribution style, where failure is attributed to an internaland uncontrollable cause, that of ability. Specifically, they were expected to attributethe failure of LD students more to lack of ability and less to lack of effort as com-pared to that of NLD students (Hypothesis 1a). Further, they were expected to reportless anger for students with LD, since their failure was due to an uncontrollablecause (Hypothesis 1b), and higher expectations of future failure as compared to theirpeers without LD (Hypothesis 1c). Finally, it was hypothesised that they will assignless punishment to children with LD than their peers without LD (Hypothesis 1d).Gender differences in teachers ratings were tested in an attempt to examine possibleinteractions between teachers gender and the LD factor. Given that there is not pre-vious evidence, at least to our knowledge, no specific hypothesis was made.

As regards the possible differences between RET and SET ratings, it wasexpected that SET would hold to a greater degree an attribution pattern according towhich students difficulties are manageable and attributed more to unstable causes,such as effort and task difficulty, and less to uncontrollable causes, such as ability,as compared to the RET pattern (Hypothesis 2a). Also, based on the previous attri-butional pattern, SET were expected to report less anger and less pity (Hypothesis2b), lower expectations of future failures (Hypothesis 2c), and less rewards as com-pared to regular teachers (Hypothesis 2d).

Methods

Sample and procedures

In terms of data collection, by necessity, the procedures differed slightly for theRET and the SET. For the former, 40 primary education schools were approachedwhile for the latter the schools approached were almost 200. This happened becausein one Greek primary school there are about 15 and more full-time RET but there isonly one special teacher per school and this applies only in the case where a pull-out program operates at the school. All schools were randomly selected from theofficial Educational Board Directories of the broader area of Athens, with the con-straints that they should be state schools with a pull-out program. With the coopera-tion of the heads, the second researcher distributed personally and/or posted about400 questionnaires. A covering letter and a stamped addressed envelope wereattached to the questionnaire. A letter was also provided with directions forcompleting the instrument (i.e. an overview of the study, a statement of its purposeand procedures for completing the instrument). All questionnaires were filled inanonymously at a time convenient to each participant teacher.

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In overall, data collection lasted for about eight months from October 2011 tillMay 2012. Two hundred and seventy-one questionnaires (169 for regular and 102for special teachers) were returned. Finally, the sample of the study consisted of 265teachers (163 regular & 102 special education teachers), all of whom worked withchildren of primary school age (5 + 11 +) in the broader area of Athens. The vastmajority (n = 130) had between 1 and 10 years teaching experience, eighty-seven(n = 87) had 1120 years of experience, fortyone (n = 41) had 21 up to 30 years ofexperience while only 7 had more than 30 years. All SETworked in pull-out pro-grams operating within regular education settings. Gender of teachers were notequally represented in the sample among the two groups [x2(N = 265) = 5.626,p < .05], since most of teachers in Greek primary schools are females (for furtherdemographic information see Table 1).

Instrument

The survey instrument was adapted from Clarks (1997) study which examined com-parisons between students with and without LD, and whether RET perceived themto a positive or negative attribution cycle. Following Clarks (1997) design eightvignettes were used, each describing a hypothetical boy who had just taken a typicalclassroom test and failed. The description of each vignette provided three types ofinformation: a statement of student ability, the typical pattern of effort expended bythe student in the classroom and additional information on academic performance.The descriptions identified half of the boys as LD and half as NLD, half as highability and half as low ability, and half as expending high effort and half as expend-ing low effort. The boys were matched on ability (high/low), on typical effort (high/low) and the presence/absence of LD (LD/NLD). Finally, a 2(ability) by 2(effort) by2 (LD/NLD) matrix was formed. An example of a vignette (high ability/low effort/NLD) is:

Phillip is a student in your class. He has greater aptitude for academic tasks than mostchildren in the class. Although he occasionally does excellent work, he is usually offtask and does not participate in class often. He rarely completes class assignments anddoes not do much of his homework.

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the sample.

RET ( = 163) SET ( = 102) Total

Age2535 years old 32 15 47 (17%)3645 years old 98 60 158 (59.6%)4655 years old 26 25 51 (19.2%)56 and above 6 3 9 (3.2%)

Education levelTwo-years degree 60 33 93 (35.3%)University degree 96 51 147 (55.5%)

Master 6 18 24 (9.2%)GenderMales 53 47 100 (38.1%)Females 110 54 164 (61.9%)

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Participants were presented with all of the vignettes. Each vignette was followed byeight questions in order to rate teachers (a) causal attributions separately (ability,effort, task difficulty, and luck), (b) emotional responses after failure (anger andpity), (c) their expectations for students future failure and (d) evaluative feedback.Specifically, teachers reported in a seven-point scale ranging from 1(not at all) to 7(very much): how much anger and pity felt towards the failing student, their predic-tion for the students future failure in classroom tests, and their ability, effort, taskdifficulty and luck attributions. In response to the evaluative feedback (Question:What feedback would you give to this child?), teachers provided positive or negativefeedback to each student using using a single scale running from + 5 through + 1(positive feedback or reward) to 1 through 5 (negative feedback or punishment).Finally, the presence or absence of LD and the type of teacher (regular or special)were the independent variables while teachers attributions, emotional reactions,future expectations and evaluative feedback were the dependent variables.

Analysis and results

For the purposes of this study, the analysis focused only on the existence orabsence of LD (LD/NLD). Specifically, the first question was whether the pres-ence or absence of learning difficulties (LD/NLD) in children differentiates teach-ers attributional pattern and evaluations. In order to answer the above question,teachers ratings in the vignettes were classified according to the presence orabsence of LD in children. The second question was whether there are differ-ences between RET and SET ratings for the above two categories of students.In order to answer this question, teachers formed two groups (Regular and Spe-cial education).

Then, a series of repeated measure MANOVAs were applied. The mean teachersratings, first for causal attributions (ability, effort, task difficulty and luck), secondfor emotional responses after failure (anger, pity), third their expectations of stu-dents future failure and fourth for the evaluative feedback after failure were thedependent variables each time. The group of teachers (Regular or Special Education)and gender were the between group independent variables and the LD (LD or NLD)the within group repeated measures variable. The respective means, standard devia-tions and statistics for the main effects are given in Table 2.

Teachers differences in ratings for students with and without LD

The main effect of LD factor was found significant for three out of four causal attri-butions, namely, the ability, the effort and the luck attributions. Both groups ofteachers rated significantly higher the contribution of ability and lower the contribu-tion of effort and luck to students with LD failure as compared to those without LD.As regards the emotional responses, the main effect of LD was found significantonly in anger ratings. Teachers reported higher anger for students without LD ascompared to that of students with LD. Also, significantly greater future failureexpectations reported from both groups of teachers for students with LD as com-pared to that of students without LD. The main effect of LD factor was not foundsignificant for teachers evaluative feedback. The effect sizes of all the above maineffects were very large.

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Table2.

Means,standard

deviations

andstatisticsof

RETandSETresponsesforstudentswith

andwith

outLD.

Studentswith

LD

Studentswith

noLD

Statistical

Indices

RET

SET

RET

SET

LD

effect

Group

ofteachers

effect

Ability

4.55

(1.21)

4.31

(1.17)

3.20

(.98)

3.19

(.96)

F(1,245)

=391.07,p