Exploring locus of control orientations of Turkish EFL learners and the relationship between attributional retraining and academic achievement: An application of an educational training programme

Abstract

The focus of this research is oninvestigating learnersí attributions with respect to their success or failure in an EFL setting with different variables such as gender, academic level and socio-economic status of the participants. A further concern was to evaluate the potential contribution of an attribution retraining intervention program to improve participantsí internal locus of control, and finally, to find out whether this attribution retraining intervention program has an effect on academic achievement. This experimental study was designed based on a pretest-posttest model and was conducted with the participants in School of Foreign Languages at Pamukkale University during 2013-2014 academic year. The study conducts an attribution retraining intervention program in addition to a questionnaire, semi- structured pre- and post-interviews, self reports. An eight-week training program on attributional retraining intervention program was administered to an experimental group of 20 learners who were purposively selected. The findings of the questionnaire were analyzed through SPSS 20 Program (Statistical Program for Social Sciences) and the pre- and post interviews were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Significant differences were found between experimental and control groups and also successful and unsuccessful students within the experimental group. Participants attributed their success to internal attributions rather than external ones, whereas they attribute their failure to both internal and external ones. No significant gender differences were observed from the findings. Socio-economic status of the participants was another important concern of the study. It was found that participants with low socio-economic status attribute their failure to external attributions more than the participants with good or average socio-economic status. Findings of the study were discussed in the light of the relevant literature and some suggestions for further studies were made. Key Words: Attribution, Attribution retraining, Academic Achievement, Socio-economic Status