CONTENT

No 1. Title Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure... Introduction 2. Results... 2.1 Students Attribution of Their Academic Success and Failure. 2.1.1 Locus of Control...... Page number 13

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4.

Discussion.

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5.

Conclusion...

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References Appendix.

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Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure Introduction This study examined the applicability of the attribution theory in understanding how students attribute their academic success and failure. Participants involved a sample of 3

secondary school students at the Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Taman Ria Jaya, 08000 Sungai Petani. They completed an interview with items on locus of control. The results show that the majority of students attributed their academic performance to internal and external locus of control factors. High performing students were more likely to attribute their academic performance to internal locus of control factors than low performing students. Success was attributed to internal and controllable factors, while academic failure was attributed to external locus of control factors. The participants demographic variables, from different type of backgrounds did not statistically significantly influence the attribution pattern. Naturally, human beings are in constant search for the factors that cause them or other people to behave the way they do. The process of assigning causes to our or other peoples behaviour is called attribution. People broadly attribute the causes of their behaviour either to internal or external locus of control factors. An internal attribution (also called personal or dispositional attribution) refers to causes that are associated with the persons innate characteristics such as personality traits, moods, attitudes, abilities or efforts. An external attribution (also called situational attribution), on the other hand, refers to the causes that are external to the person, such as the actions of others, environmental situation or luck. The attribution theory has been applied in various contexts. It has been applied, for example, in understanding peoples decisions about health behaviours, in explaining how people attribute their success or failure in a task and in explaining differences in motivation between high and low achievers (Amani, 2012). One area that has received considerable attention in social psychological research with regard to the application of attribution theory is its application in explaining success or failure in academic context, with Bernard Weiner as the main theorist. According to attribution theory, success or failure in academic tasks is associated with three sets of characteristics (Weiner, 1985). Firstly, people may succeed or fail because of internal or external locus of control factors, that is, because of factors that originate from within themselves or because of factors that originate in their environment. Secondly, the causes of success or failure may be either stable or unstable. If people believe that the factors are stable, then they may believe that the outcome of their performance is likely to be the same next time they attempt the same or similar task. If the factors are unstable, it means that they can be

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changed and therefore the outcome of performance may be different next time a behaviour is performed. Thirdly, the causes of success or failure may be either controllable or uncontrollable. If the causes are controllable, then it means that people believe that they can alter these causes. But, on the other hand, if people believe that the causes are uncontrollable, it means that they cannot be altered easily. The attribution theory assumes that people will attribute their success or failure to factors that will enable them to feel as good as possible about themselves. To avoid negative emotional reactions, people have a tendency to attribute success to their own efforts or abilities, but they tend to attribute failure to some external factors that they do not have control of. Accordingly, learners tend to attribute their success at examinations to their efforts or abilities, but they will attribute failure to some environmental factors, such as bad teaching, bad luck or lack of teaching and learning facilities. This implies that peoples perceptions or attributions for success or failure will determine the amount of effort the person is willing to expend on a particular activity. Therefore, people who attribute a cause to external factors are less likely to put more effort on a task than those who attribute internally. In educational context, Weiner (1985) identified four attribution factors that are related to academic success or failure, namely: ability, task difficulty, effort and luck. Probably effort is the most important factor in which learners can exercise a great deal of control. Task difficulty is an external and a stable factor, which is clearly beyond the learners control. Though ability is relatively an internal factor, the learner does not have much control over it because it is a stable factor that cannot easily be changed. Luck is an external and unstable factor and, as such, the learner does have a very little control over it. Persistence is another important determinant in learners success in academic endeavours. Learners will be most persistent at academic tasks if they attribute their academic success to internal, unstable factors that they have control, such as effort. It follows that for students to be able to persist at academic activities, they need to believe that they are competent and that by working hard they can be successful. Students are also more likely to do better in their future academic task if they attribute their current failure to a lack of appropriate effort, and the role of the teacher in this case is to foster a belief in students that they can always do better by putting more effort in their academic tasks. Thus, it is generally best for students to believe that it is their own behaviour rather than external factors that leads to success or failure. However, it is also equally important for students to realize the influence of the environment that surrounds them which might affect their success, and therefore they should avoid overestimating their abilities. 32

Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure In recent years, the attribution theory of achievement motivation and emotion (Weiner, 1985) has received considerable attention in social psychological research. The studies generally support the assumption made by the attribution theory that students who achieve high in academic tasks tend to associate their success to internal factors such as ability, effort and having worked hard, while those who do not perform well tend to attribute their failure to external factors, such as bad luck, bad teaching and poor learning environment. Apart from locus of control, is another important dimension in Weiners attribution theory that has received considerable attention in social psychological research. Studies indicate that, of the four attributes in the Weiners attribution theory, ability, task difficulty, effort and luck, only effort can be under individuals control. This implies that students need to bank more on effort if they are to be successful in their academic endeavours than other attributes, which they may not have direct control. Indeed, it is clear that attributions have a significant effect on students academic achievement, and that the process of attribution is affected by, among other factors, the context in which the attributions are made. Weiner's attribution theory as applied to student motivation Perceived locus of control Internal Attributions no control Attributions control of of External

Ability

Chance/luck

Effort

Task difficulty

Furthermore, previous studies have not systematically examined the variation in attribution of academic achievement between low and high performing students, as well as variation in attribution among students in different academic disciplines and specialisations. The purpose of the present study was to assess the variation in attribution of academic achievement between high performing and low performing secondary school students. More specifically, the study addressed the following research questions. First, is there a statistically significant difference in attribution of academic achievement between students who succeeded and those who failed in an examination? Second, is there a statistically significant variation in attribution of academic achievement between high and low performing students? Third, how does 15

students attribution of academic achievement vary across academic specializations or discipline? The attribution pattern was assessed with respect to the dimensions of the locus of control.

2. Results 2.1 Students Attribution of Their Academic Success and Failure.

The respondents for my interview are from different backgrounds. Where First respondents parents were factory workers, second respondents parents do simple business and third respondent father is fisher monger. The aspects of the attribution were assessed, namely locus of control. The locus of control assessed whether students attributed their academic success and failure to internal or external causes.Whether students thought the causes for their academic performance were under their control or not. The results of each of the locus of control are presented below.

2.1.1 Locus of Control. Using the Rotters Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, students attribution of their academic performance was assessed along internal-external dimension. The Rotters scale has a total of 36 possible points, with a high score indicating an internal locus of control and a low score indicating an external locus of control. The descriptive analysis revealed a score range of 5-36 (14 questions show high performance),78 % of the 3participants who attended to interview and completed the questionnaire, the majority of them (94.4%) scored between 0-4 points, implying that the majority of the students attributed their academic performance to external causes. About 55.5 percent of the participants scored between 10-15 between 36 points of scores, indicating that they attributed their academic performance to external causes. The tests were conducted to examine the variation in attribution between students who succeeded in an examination and those who failed. Academic success was defined as passing without supplementing an academic result in the previous PMR examination. The

results revealed a statistically significant variation in attribution between students who supplemented an examination . A higher proportion (66.6%) of students who supplemented an examination attributed their academic performance to external causes and internal locus of control. 32

Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure

Internal
6

4 the scores

Res/1 Res /2

Res/3

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 number of questions

Figure1. The scores by respondents on factors of internal locus of control

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External
6 5 4 the scores 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 number of questions Res/1 Res /2 Res/3

Figure2. The scores by respondents on factors of external locus of control

The respondents for my interview are from different backgrounds. Where First respondents parents were factory workers, second respondents parents do simple business and third respondent father is fisher monger. Parenting is one of the factor fron external locus of control. This factor can be wonderful and rewarding, but it can also be difficult and unpleasant. Most parents experience moments of feeling overwhelmed. Theres a lot of information out there about what parents should do to raise good kids. In reality, there are no guaranteed methods for ensuring children will be happy, healthy, and successful in life. There is, however, plenty of research showing that parents can make a significant, positive difference through a number of simple approaches. The role of parents for first respondents is attributing for his success. They spent time, money and take care of him, which motivates him internally to success in his study. While the second respondent is different where the parent not take care about his studies, so he internally low motivation intrinsically about his studies.

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Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure After parents, teachers play main role in students studies. There are clearly from the interview, whatever the first respondent share with us, the external locus of control where his science teacher, Pn. Rabiah encourage first respondent to express his ideas, encouragement for him to participate in discussions, the extent to which students are involved in group discussions among themselves, the extent to which he and his friends learn from one another motivate them to do well in their academic field. It is important to note that teachers are an influencing agent for student motivation. For instance, encouraging students in their pursuit for excellence in learning, providing positive feedback, being involved in positive interactions, remaining enthusiastic about students and student educational growth, and cultivating a positive classroom environment, have a strong impact on student academic motivation (John Rugutt, 2009). Being aware of how teacher-student interaction (relations) can be promote academic motivation may provide implications in a variety of areas for educators. Teachers can likely restructure the teaching and learning environment by providing different learning strategies to students and finding ways to motivate student to learn and to engage them in active learning. The result of interview also remain us with different type of replies from respondents which sound as and mean to: the teacher takes a personal interest in me, the teacher helps me when I have trouble with the work, the teacher talk with me, the teacher moves about the class to talk with me, it is alright for me to tell the teacher that I do understand and the teachers questions help me to understand. So here it is clear, without knowing and understanding how teacher-student relations influence motivation, teacher may limit their abilities to improving instruction. Students engage in learning through behaviors and motivation, and those learners who are highly motivated remain engaged, enthusiastic and are more likely to participate in academic activities. Classes would have liked friend-friend relationship with their teacher. This kind of interpersonal relationship between students and teachers may make students feel less watched, evaluated, and uneasy. The impact of the close teacher-student relationship on students motivation also showed this positive correlation (Wen, 2003). Morells (2007) study showed that students think it will promote their participation in class if the teacher gets to know them and the classroom atmosphere is not inhibited. On the contrary, the less motivated the students are, the less they remain engaged in learning, like second respondents shared with us where his teachers dont bother about him that make him not motivated in his studies.

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In a study of some researcher a teacher suggested that if a class is more learnercentered, this class will be more active like Pn. Rabiah encourages her students to do hands on activity such as experiment in her class. If students become more active in class, they may be able to easily break down those constraints and anxieties, bad mood which in turn facilitate a move away from passive learning, internal locus of control. Designing activities that learners have great interest in carrying out and employing supplemental teaching materials besides textbooks and workbooks can be helpful in promoting learner-centered teaching and learning. While teachers create their lesson plans, they should consider what students consider, what students preferences are and then thoughts to what activities can be used for this lesson plan. That learning activities interest students and could enhance students motivation and interest. Otherwise, it also suggested that games can be designed for encouraging students to actively participate in class. Teachers could even allow students to choose from a list of topics for discussion. They can encourage students and increase their participation in class by offering more control over discussion topic (Lim, 2003). In order to motivate students to talk more in class, building a student rapport is essential. It is believed that a warm and positive environment can reduce students fear of embarrassment when speaking English like second respondent or express their answer on mathematic subject by first respondent. Materials other than textbooks should be considered as a supplement. However, supplemental materials should be selected based on students interests and curriculum needs. Another important factor is promoting students willingness to do well in their subject would be the educators professionalism, which could be achieved through different trainings or other opportunities. Being capable of designing appropriate and effective classroom activities and delivering the lesson plan in a lively way is the key to increase participation on the part of students. Additionally, teachers proficiency in the subject they teach in classroom will enhance on students desire to practice more in class, as teachers are taken role models to certain students. Attribution of student-to-student relations, facilitating students work and cognitive skills in their academic success and failure.Further, much of prior research considered motivation in young children in relationship to cognitive skills that are developmentally appropriate for primary schools. Learning factual information, developing concepts in, understanding and applying principles, rules or theories and critical analysis and/or problem solving more related to critical thinking skills especially in mathematic subject. In order students-to students relations the replies from interviews sound like this, I make friendships with other students, My friends help 32

Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure me with my learning, I do favors for members of my group, and in this case, I am able to depend on other students for help in their study group. While students motivation is related to the emphasis on critical thinking skills, student-to-student relations, and facilitating students work either prefer work alone or work in group in a primary teaching and learning environment are external locus of control. Whereas prior studies have considered the students motivation as the independent variable and cognitive skills including critical thinking skills as dependent variables. From the interview we can found the 66.7% of respondent prefer to study alone. This increase might reflect a growing understanding that ones own academic abilities will be judged at the time of doing revision prepared to exam, an avoidance of carrying the burden for a group, or a desire to compete against other students. Also, earlier studies measured actual performance on tests of higher order thinking rather than the emphasis given to those skills in the classroom. That emphasis on critical thinking skills in the classroom, student-to-student relations and facilitating students work, will serve to motivate students and increase their

involvement in the class or at outside of the class and directly or indirectly lead to positive academic change. Student-to-student relations, and facilitating students work and critical thinking skills are important variables in predicting motivation and contribute to students positive teaching and learning environment by putting in place structures that help in providing an optimal learning environment for learners (John Rugutt, 2009). The issues of position, standpoint and of the starting points they adopt in studying learning are apparent. That how to understand learning depends upon the theoretical position adopted. A particular theoretical approach, variation theory, and shows how this can help us think about both learning process and learning content at the same time. The next commonly held view is that learning always entails the interaction between several factors, rather than the taking of one foundational or primary variable. Finally, despite subtle and important variations, all the papers eschew positivism and crude neo-realism, approaching research from a more broadly qualitative and interpretative position. Furthermore, if we change one factor in the complexity that is learning, others may also change relationally. Each factor can only be understood in relation to the others, and we cannot hold everything constant, whilst we change one aspect. The mind and body as distinct, with the mind as superior.The learning that at best brackets the body off as peripheral, and at worst, ignores it completely. To many, mathematics epitomizes the superiority of the mind. The common view of the discipline, both inside and outside the mathematics community, is that the subject is inherently logical and rational. It 15

follows that learning mathematics is itself a thinking, cerebral process. Classroom practices were negotiated between teachers and pupils. That is, classroom cultures would be different if different pupils were present or if pupils were different. Students values and perceptions should be a major factor in determining the tertiary mathematics curriculum. They are careful to tell us that their experiment was conducted in a classroom culture strongly oriented towards verbalization and discussion. Furthermore, the ways in which one person is part of a learning context may be very different from the ways in which another person is part of even the learning context. In this issue, focus on gender. In similar ways, learners belong to different ethnic groups, different social classes and different generations. Such social similarities and differences between learners in a particular place of learning are central importance in understanding their learning. 3. Discussion

High performing students are more likely to attribute their academic performance to internal causes than low performing students. In this case, there was a statistically significant variation in attribution with respect to locus of control between high performing and low performing students. The results of this study, generally, people tend to attribute success to internal locus of control factors, while attributing failure to some external locus of control factors. In simplistic terms, a more internal locus of control is generally seen as desirable. Having an Internal locus of control can also be referred to as "self-agency", "personal control", "selfdetermination", and others. Individuals with a high internal locus of control believe that events in their life derive primarily from their own actions; for example, if a person with an internal locus of control does not perform as well as they wanted to on a test, they would blame it on lack of preparedness on their part. If they performed well on a test, they would attribute this to ability to study. In the test-performance example, if a person with a high external locus of control does poorly on a test, they might attribute this to the difficulty of the test questions. If they performed well on a test, they might think the teacher was lenient or that they were lucky. However, its important to warn people against lapsing in the overly simplistic view notion that internal is good and external is bad. There are important subtleties and complexities to be considered. For example, internals can be psychologically unhealthy and unstable. An internal orientation usually needs to be matched by competence, self-efficacy and opportunity so that the person is able to successfully experience the sense of personal control and responsibility. Overly internal people who lack competence, efficacy and 32

Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure opportunity can become neurotic, anxious and depressed. In other words, internals need to have a realistic sense of their circle of influence in order to experience 'success'. But, externals can lead easy-going, relaxed, happy lives. Despite these cautions, psychological research has found that people with a more internal locus of control seem to be better off. They tend to be more achievement oriented and to get better paid jobs. However, thought regarding causality is needed here too. Sometimes Locus of Control is seen as a stable, underlying personality construct, but this may be misleading, since the theory and research indicates that that locus of control is largely learned. There is evidence that, at least to some extent, locus of control is a response to circumstances. Some psychological and educational interventions have been found to produce shifts towards internal locus of control by outdoor education programs. 4. Conclusions

The results of this study confirm the predictions of the attribution theory and are in line with the findings of many other previous similar studies conducted elsewhere with different ration of students from Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Taman Ria Jaya. The results generally support the basis of the attribution theory that success is always attributable to internal factors, while failure is attributed to external factors. The results of the present study should be interpreted with one caveat. As such, generalization of the findings should be done with great care as the sample was not wholly representative. These results point out some important implications for students, parents, teachers and peers. As stated by same researcher, students should accept the fact that much of what happens to them is a result of what they do. As such they should focus on effort as the main driver of success in their academic endeavours rather than luck or ability. Parent must play their role by being good friends and sharing with them. Otherwise parents also can be guider for them. Teachers, on the other hand, should adjust the way they interact with and respond to students performance by appreciating the fact that every student can learn to learn and therefore every student can be successful. The good, sharing, and responsibility peers in group can motivate themselves by discussing and overcame the problems in their studies. These results therefore have implications in demystifying the selffulfilling prophecy, which can be detrimental in teachers handling of their students learning endeavours. It is also recommended that secondary school students should always emphasize effort as the basis of students success in their academic activities, while im proving the learning environment so as to minimize environmental constraints. If they always depend on external 15

locus of control the most of the time the students felt bored and lost their interesting on their studies. People with a high external locus of control believe that control over events and what other people do is outside them, and that they personally have little or no control over such things. They may even believe that others have control over them and that they can do nothing but obey. Rotter (1990) describes the external locus of control as: 'the degree to which persons expect that the reinforcement or outcome is a function of chance, luck, or fate, is under the control o f powerful others, or is simply unpredictable.' With such beliefs, people with an external locus of control tend to be fatalistic, seeing things as happening to them and that there is little they can do about it. This tends to make them more passive and accepting. When they succeed, they are more likely to attribute this to luck than their own efforts. They are less likely to have expectancy shifts, seeing similar events as likely to have similar outcomes. They hence step back from events, assuming they cannot make a difference. Meanwhile, regarding locus of control, there is another type of control that entails a mix among the internal and external types. People that have the combination of the two types of locus of control are often referred to as Bi-locals. People that have Bi-local characteristics are known to handle stress and cope with their diseases more efficiently by having the mixture of internal and external locus of control. People that have this mix of locus of control can take personal responsibility for their actions and the consequences thereof while remaining capable of relying upon and having faith in outside resources; these characteristics correspond to the internal and external locus of control, respectively.

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Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure References

Amani, K. A. (2012). Perceived University Students' Attributions of Thier Academic Success and Failure. Asian Sosial Science , 247-255. CHENG, X. (2000). Asians Students' reticence revisited. System , 435-446. Gambrell, L. (2001). What we know about motivation to read. Reading researchers in seach of coomon ground , 129-143. John Rugutt, C. &. (2009). What motivates Students to Learn? Contribution of Student-toStudent Reations, Students-faculty Interaction and Critical Thinking Skills. Educational Research Quarterly , 16-28. Lim, H. &. (2003). Successfu classroom discussion with adult Korean ESL/ESL learners. The internet TESL Journal , 9(5). McDonough, K. (2004). Learner-learner interaction during pair and small group activities in a Thai EFL context. System 32(2) , 207-224. Morell, T. (2007). What enhance EFL students;participation in lecture discourse?

Student,Lecturer and discourse perspectives. Journal of English for Academic Purpose , 222237. Sengodan, V. (2012). Students' Learning Styles and Intrinsic Motivation in Learning Mathematics. Asian Social Science , 17-23. Wen, W. C. (2003). A Chinese conceptualisation of willingness to communicate in ESL. Language, Culture and Curriculum , 18-38.

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5. Appendix

Interviewer: Mrs.A.Elayarani a/p Augu Respondent: Kesiken a/l Loganathan Location: Tingkatan 4 S3 Time/Date: 2:30 p.m. Feb 19th, 2013 Topic: to assess factors such as attributions for success and failure and locus of control.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT: (After icebreaking) MRS A.ELAYARANI: Good Evening Mr. Kesikan .Can I know your family background? MR.L.KESIKAN: Oh can. My name is Kesikan.My fathers name is Mr.Loganathan. My mothers name is Mrs. Menachee. I am youngest in my family. I have two siblings. My parents are factories workers. We are middle class family. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Mr.Kesikan what about your achievement in your studies? MR.L.KESIKAN: Last year I got 8 As in my PMR result. Now I am in form 4. MRS A.ELAYARANI: How you can achieve in your studies? MR.L.KESIKAN: It just cause of my parents. Both of them put more effort then me. While we are from middle class they bought various types of revision books, exercise books and sent me to extra classes. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Other than your parents who help you for your achievements? MR.L.KESIKAN: Of course my teachers. I like my science teacher, Pn.Rabiah. She is very cheerful person. I always wait for her class because the way she teaches makes me understood the topic very easily. The demonstration and her face expression were very attractive. She always asks us to do experiments. I mostly like to do experiments because my ambition is to be scientist in future.
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Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure

MRS A.ELAYARANI: Do you like to study in group or study alone? MR.L.KESIKAN: Study in group. I always do group studies with my friends. So, we do discussion. Mostly I dont like to study alone because it was boring. The discussion makes me improve in my academic section. There were 4 members in my group whether 3 of them were girls. They were very serious then us. But, sometime we were chattering. But most of time we help each other in our studies. My friends help me with my learning. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Which subject you most prefer and which subject you most dislike? Why? MR.L.KESIKAN: I like Science very much, first its related to my ambition and second caused by my previous teacher Pn.Rabiah, always encouraged me to express my own ideas and help me when I have trouble with my studies. Otherwise, encouragement for me to participate in discussions motivate me do well in this subject. Now I most hate with additional mathematic. Because, the calculations are very difficult, moreover involve formulas but I must try my level best to do best because my cousin achieved highest mark in this subject .His mother always proud with him. I felt jealous on him. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Mr.Kesikan can you describe about your studying environment? (I give some examples) MR.L.KESIKAN: Yes I like my own space when I study alone. I like to listen for music but my father dont allowed me because he said if I listen for music I pay low attention on my studies. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Any last advice to other students out there to achieve? MR.L.KESIKAN: Be hard achieve in your studies. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Thank you for your time! MR.L.KESIKAN: Youre welcome.

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Interviewer: Mrs.A.Elayarani a/p Augu Respondent: Abdul Alim bin Baharuddin Location: Tingkatan 4 A13 Time/Date: 2:30 p.m. Feb 20th, 2013 Topic: to assess factors such as attributions for success and failure and locus of control.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT: (After icebreaking) MRS A.ELAYARANI: Good Evening Mr. Abdul Alim.Can I know your family background? MR.ABDUL ALIM: I am Abdul Alim. My fathers name is Mrs.Mokhtar bin Razali. My mothers name is Mrs.Nur Aleeya binti Adbul Naim. There are 11 members in my family. I am ninth son for my parents. My father is already 67 years old. He just look after his orchards. My mother cook nasi lemak and sold it near to my home. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Alim what about your achievement in your studies? MR.ABDUL ALIM: I get 4 Ds 3Es. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Why are you failure in studies? MR.ABDUL ALIM:I am not interested in my studies. I just go to school because forced by my parents. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Are there your parents support to you in your studies? MR.ABDUL ALIM: Not. They arent. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Are that your teachers help to you? MR.ABDUL ALIM: Actually I embarrass ask questions to teacher. But Teachers mostly dont bother about our group.

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Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure

MRS A.ELAYARANI: If you want to study, you study in group or alone? MR.ABDUL ALIM: I like to study in group. But my peers are not excellent in their studies. If I study alone I cant understood the content. So, better to dont study. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Which subject you most prefer and which subject you most dislike? Why? MR.ABDUL ALIM: I like kemahiran hidup because that subject more related to hands on activity. I dont like English because I cant speak and I cant understood what the other speak. So, I dont like Science and mathematic too. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Mr.Abdul Alim can you describe about your studying environment? (I give some examples) MR.ABDUL ALIM: I mostly like to hands on activities. Out of textbook. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Do you have any Ideas to sharewith others? MR.ABDUL ALIM: No, I dont have any ideas. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Thank you for your time! MR.ABDUL ALIM: Youre welcome.

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Interviewer: Mrs.A.Elayarani a/p Augu Respondent: Lim Yang Yang Location: Tingkatan 4 S3 Time/Date: 2:30 p.m. Feb 21th, 2013 Topic: to assess factors such as attributions for success and failure and locus of control.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT: (After icebreaking) MRS A.ELAYARANI: Good Evening Miss Lim Yang Yang .Can I know your family background? MS LIM YANG YANG: Good evening madam. My name is Lim Yang Yang. I am eldest among 5 siblings. My father is Lim Sean Keat. He is fishermonger. My mother is Tan Bee Bee. She is housewife. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Miss Yang Yang what about your achievement in your studies? MS LIM YANG YANG: In PMR I got 4 Bs and 4Cs. MRS A.ELAYARANI: How you can achieve in your studies? MS LIM YANG YANG: I work hard myself. I look for my friends. They achieved best result their academic. My parents are more encouraging me in my studies. I always help my father in market. But I always bring my books there. I study my books when was free. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Other than your parents who help you for your achievements? MS LIM YANG YANG: My teachers and friends. My teachers help me achieve in my studies. My friends always distribute and exchange their notes with me. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Do you like to study in group or study alone?

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Locus of Control that Attribute Students Academic Success and Failure

MS LIM YANG YANG: I like study alone. Because the time of factor.I should be help for my father at market. Otherwise, I most prefer to work alone and I dont like the interruption from others. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Which subject you most prefer and which subject you most dislike? Why? MS LIM YANG YANG: I like Mathematic and dont like history. Mathematic never make felt sleepy but when I open my History book my eyes always closed itself. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Ms. Yang Yang can you describe about your studying environment? (I give some examples) MS LIM YANG YANG: I just likes see pictures compared by words. So, I also prefer for geography. I always like to do simple mind map. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Any last advice to other students out there to achieve? MS LIM YANG YANG : Dont give up until you success in your life. This words are always repeating by my grandfather. MRS A.ELAYARANI: Thank you for your time! MS LIM YANG YANG: Youre welcome.

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Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire, you will remain anonymous. I just need a sample of a student ( in this case what motivate them to study) to use as an example for a survey.

What motivate you to study interestingly? I prefer lessons where Im asked to remember information accurately The teacher involves me and classes in planning We are asked to brain storm ideas and facts We look at case studies and other real life examples We are given choice of activities to learn the something We are taught as a class and all do the same work Where the teacher makes the goals of lesson clear We have to make sense of information given to as We have to collect information and data ourselves The teacher demonstrate something We have group or class discussion We can work things out in groups The teacher organize group work The teacher ask me for my feelings about something The teacher gives as information through teaching in front of class Im allowed to make mistakes I take notes I work in pairs We practice skills We have to solve a problem Im asked to think about my experiences The reason Im doing something is made clear to me We can report our findings in different ways We have role play We do fun learning activities We have to deal with simulated, real life situations I can use my particular skills We are being tested I have to be thought and careful with my work The teacher use different teaching methods Where we have a video I work alone My parents take care about my studies Self motivation to study hard The environmental factor ( Bright/ dim light ) Prefer to listen for music

Locus of control Internal External Internal Internal External External External Internal Internal External External External External External External Internal Internal External External External Internal External Internal External External External Internal Internal Internal External External External External Internal External External

Res/1 4 4 5 5 5 3 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 4 4 5 5 4 5 5 4 3 4 5 5 5 5

Res /2 1 1 1 3 1 5 2 1 1 4 2 2 3 1 4 5 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 3 4 4 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

Res/3 4 3 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 3 4 5 3 2 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 3 4 3 4 3 5 5 1

32