Longitudinal effects of task performance and self-concept on preadolescent EFL learners’ causal attributions of grammar success and failure

• Published in: Studies in second language learning and teaching Vol. IX; no. 4; pp. 633 - 656
• Main Author: Faber, Günter
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wojskowe Biuro Historyczne im. gen. broni Kazimierza Sosnkowskiego 2019; Military Historical Bureau of Lieutenant-General Kazimierz Sosnkowski
• Subjects: Foreign languages learning; selfconcept; gender; grammar performance; grade level; causal attributions
• ISSN: 2083-5205; 2084-1965

Learners’ academic self-concepts and attributions have been widely evidenced to substantially regulate their educational development. Develop­men­tally, they will not only oper­ate in a mu­tually reinforcing manner. Rather, self-concepts will di­­­­rectly affect learners’ out­come attri­bu­­tions in a particular academic set­ting. Current research in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context has increasingly anal­­yzed learners’ attributions and self-concepts on a task-spe­­cific construct level. Never­the­less, there still exist certain research gaps in the field, partic­ularly con­cerning learners’ gram­mar self-con­cept and attributions. There­fore, the present study aimed at anal­yzing lon­gi­tu­dinal re­­lat­ions of prior performance and self-concept with subsequent attri­bu­tions of gram­mar suc­cess and failure in a samp­le of preadolescent EFL learners. Findings demonstrated that attri­bu­tional pat­terns most­­­­ly but not en­tire­ly depended on learn­ers’ grammar self-concept. Poor per­­form­ing learn­ers hold­ing a low self-concept dis­­played a maladaptive attri­bu­tion pattern for ex­­plain­ing both gram­­­mar suc­cess and failure. Though not with respect to all causal factors, these findings largely con­firm the crucial role of task-spe­cific self-concept in longitudinally explaining re­­lated control beliefs in the EFL con­text.