American culture attributes success and failure to four factors (native ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck) existing on three continuums (locus, stability, and controllability). This article applies attribution theory to students' beliefs concerning their present and future academic performance and explores implications for both students…

Surveys of the growth of rural Philippine infants indicate that monthly gain slows down at three months with stunting evident in the second year despite common breastfeeding for one year. A program that reinforced the use of local food as supplementary nourishment and encouraged family planning led to improved growth. (DB)

Two experiments show that performance impairment after failure can occur in different ways, depending on the goals, values, self-perception, sex, presence of an observer, and other attributional tendencies of the individual responding to that failure. (JAZ)

The dropout problem is growing at an alarming rate. In California educational clinics are being experimentally developed for use with dropout students. Describes the educational clinic planned for Grant Joint Union High School District. (MD)

Chicana and Anglo female subjects responded to verbal descriptions in which an Anglo, Black, or Chicana female experienced either occupational success or failure. Significant variations were found in attributions for occupational outcome as a function of ethnic background of both the subject and the succeeding or failing actor. (Author/GC)

Presents 10 case studies to examine success of Chicano farmers in cooperatives. Identifies keys to success: members' independence aspirations, production of labor-intensive crops, and support network within the cooperative. Discusses external/internal factors influencing success: high attrition rates and "free riders," social cohesion,…

In an interview focused on his book "On Learning to Read: The Child's Fascination with Meaning," Bruno Bettelheim explains why he thinks reading primers are insulting and demeaning. He asserts that the absence of content in the primers teach children to dislike reading. (ML)

Reviews studies which examine spontaneous attributional activity. The paradigms include the coding of written material, recording of thoughts during or after task completion, and indirect inferences of attributional activity exhibited in other cognitive processes. Finds unequivocal documentation of attributional activity and the conditions that…

The Mathematics Attribution Scale (MAS) (Algebra) was designed to assess attributions of success and failure in algebra to ability, effort, task, and environment. This study examined the MAS (Algebra) for a separate dimension of attributes for success and a dimension of attributes for failure. The two hypothesized dimensions did not emerge.…

Compares the imagery of two poems that deal with the price exacted by athletic success: John Updike's "Ex-Basketball Player" and A. E. Housman's "To an Athlete Dying Young." (RBW)

This review of evaluation findings on Dutch government policy successes and failures points to the influence of political culture on policy effectiveness. Public policy goal attainment is more likely when the government acts purposively, on the basis of relevant information, with power, and with integration. (Author/BS)

The "Test Anxiety Scale for Children" and the "Lie Scale for Children" were administered to 60 children, half of whom were defined by schools as learning disabled (LD). LD subjects were more anxious than the nondisabled, and their test anxiety was significantly related to reading and mathematics achievement scores. (Author)

Recreation program planners can learn from program failures. Failures should not be viewed as negative statements about personnel. Examining feelings in a supportive staff environment is suggested as a technique for developing competence. (DF)

Reanalysis of previous studies indicated mean persistence scores are highest and equal for success-motivated subjects with high subjective expectation of success and for failure-avoidance motivated subjects with low expectation of success; scores are lowest for success-motivated subjects with low success expectation and for failure-avoidance…

Notes that the most important fact that the data reveals is that only six of the twenty-four colleges surveyed have a dial access system leading to the conclusion that black colleges could not have killed dial access because they never had it. (Author/AM)