Modifying Harmful Beliefs About Academic Setbacks: An Attribution Retraining Intervention for African-American Middle School Students at Risk for Academic Failure

Erin N Cue,April Z Taylor

doi:10.20849/jed.v4i3.799

Abstract

Ongoing reports of the achievement gap suggest the need for effective interventions that can increase motivation and academic outcomes for African-American youth. This study describes a 3-week evidence-based attribution retraining intervention designed to alter harmful beliefs associated with academic failure among African-American middle school students. Guided by attribution theory, the lessons in the intervention were designed to help students modify maladaptive attributions for academic failure and understand that positive academic outcomes could be obtained through increased preparation and effort. Participants included 64 6th graders identified as low achieving who were randomly assigned to either a treatment or wait-list control group. Results showed significant increases in adaptive attributions and decreases in maladaptive attributions for the treatment group compared to the control group. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Highlights

African American experiences within the U.S education system have historically been characterized by ongoing mistreatment, inequalities, and the Black-White achievement gap (Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Darling-Hammond, 2007) with African American students, in particular African American males, consistently and historically lagging behind their non-ethnic-minority counterparts in grade point average and other academic indicators (Ford & Moore, 2013; Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Johnson, 2002)
Significant results were found in the repeated-measures analyses comparing pre-questionnaire to follow-up data. Results of these analyses indicated a significant three-way interaction for attributions to lack of effort (F(1,52) = 4.00, p = .05) and a three-way interaction for attributions to discrimination that approached significance (F(1,53) = 3.07, p = .09). (Note 1) for the variables lack of effort and discrimination, the effect of the intervention across time differed for males compared to female as is described below
This study reports the efficacy of a culturally-adapted attribution retraining intervention for African American 6th graders at risk for academic failure

Summary

Introduction

African American experiences within the U.S education system have historically been characterized by ongoing mistreatment, inequalities, and the Black-White achievement gap (Boykin & Noguera, 2011; Darling-Hammond, 2007) with African American students, in particular African American males, consistently and historically lagging behind their non-ethnic-minority counterparts in grade point average and other academic indicators (Ford & Moore, 2013; Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Johnson, 2002). There is a documented relationship between African-American students’ perceptions of achievement and academic outcomes in that, for example, African-American students labeled as gifted are more likely to exhibit belief in the “American Achievement Ideology” – the notion that working hard in school will result in long-term gain, than are non-gifted identified African-American students (Ford, 1992; Irving & Hudley, 2008; Ogbu, 1991). Students were taught that at some point all students fail, do poorly, or fall short of meeting a goal, and that how they approach or view this failure outcome has an effect on their future outcomes In these lessons students defined effort and generated effort strategies that they could use in their classes to reach their short-term goals (e.g., asking the teacher for help, trying harder on homework assignments). In this component, students were taught that through increased effort and hard work they could obtain their goals and prevent undesirable outcomes

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion