Causal Attributions for Student Performance
The purpose of this study, was to determine whether differences in conceptual complexity are related to the tendency of preservice teachers to make ego-defensive attributions for student performance under success or failure conditions. It was hypothesized that concrete individuals would make more ego-defensive attributions than abstract individuals and abstract individuals would make more nondefensive attributions than concrete individuals. The data support the hypotheses only for attributions regarding student ability and motivation.