Relationship Between Causal Attributions and Academic Achievement of Senior Secondary School Students in North Central, Nigeria

This study investigated the relationship between causal attributions and academic achievement of senior secondary school students in North Central, Nigeria. With the purpose of identifying the causal attributions of senior secondary schools in the North Central of Nigeria and also examining the relationships that academic achievement could have with variables such as controllable internal causal attributions for success, uncontrollable internal attributions for success and external causal attributions for success, controllable internal causal attributions for failure, uncontrollable internal attributions for failure and external causal attributions for failure. The study adopted a correlational research design to examine the relationship between variables. The population for the study was one hundred and eighty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight (180,978) SS II students in the North Central of Nigeria out of which 384 students were systematically selected for the study. Controllability causal attribution scale was used as research instruments. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data at four different levels; simple percentages was used to analyze the respondents’ demographic data, mean, standard deviation and scatterplot was used to analyze the research questions, Multiple Linear Regression Analysis was used to analyze hypothesis 1, Person Product-Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to analyze the hypotheses 2 to 4 while Moderated Multiple Linear Regression Analysis (MMLRA) was used to test hypothesis nine at 0.05 alpha level of significant. The results revealed that causal attributions considerably influence academic achievement, with controllable internal causal attributions for success and failure having significant effects. Controllable Internal Causal Attribution for Failure is a 'major positive predictor' of academic achievement. Uncontrollable internal causal attribution for failure and external causal attribution for failure have considerable negative relationships with academic achievement. Schools should implement attribution retraining programs to help students develop a mindset that links their academic outcomes to controllable factors like effort and strategy use, rather than external or uncontrollable causes