Children's school performance and their parents' causal attributions to ability and effort: A longitudinal study

The present study investigated the cross-lagged associations between parents' attributions of ability and effort concerning their children's success and failure, and children's academic performance in kindergarten and primary school. Two hundred seven children and their parents were followed over three years. The parents completed a questionnaire concerning their causal attributions for their children's performance three times. Children's performance in mathematics and reading was tested twice a year. The results showed that children's high academic performance predicted parents' attributions of their children's success to ability, whereas low performance predicted parental attributions to effort. Furthermore, parental attributions to ability were positively related to higher levels of later academic performance.