Attributions to Academic Achievements in the Transition to Higher Education

The perceived causes of success in academic learning play a decisive role in students’ goals, behaviours and emotional reactions towards similar situations in the future. The purpose of this study was to identify the perceived causes of academic achievement in the transition to higher education and to relate them to the academic outcomes. The participants, 204 college students, were asked to rate the importance of a list of attributions to their academic outcomes. Those ratings were related to a measure of academic success. The results have revealed that the most important perceived causes of success are internal and controllable. Discriminant analysis permitted the estimation of a significant discriminant function that distinguishes between successful and non-successful students. A one-way ANOVA has revealed significantly higher means of internal and controllable attributions in more successful students. These results suggest the importance of interventions to help students assume control over their success and engage intentionally in more effective learning processes.