Employing measures of attributional styles and metacognitive reading behaviors, a study investigated whether a relationship exists between passive reading behaviors and extreme attributional styles (learned helplessness) in college students on academic probation. Attributional style and metacognitive strategies exhibited while reading college text material were assessed for 75 probationary students of average reading ability. First, however, an attributional styles questionnaire and a metacognitive behavior scale had to be developed. Although findings revealed no statistically significant relationship between the two variables, they did show a tendency for subjects marked "low" on metacognitive reading behaviors to be rated "external" and "internal" in attributional styles at approximately 1.5 times the expected rate (i.e., to score in the top or bottom 10% on the attributional styles questionnaire). In addition, results indicated that subjects demonstrated significantly fewer metacognitive reading behaviors and exhibited more extremely external attributors than the regularly enrolled population. (Author/JD)