Art:10.1007/s10648 012 9193 Z

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311 DOI 10.
1007/s10648-012-9193-z REPLICATION
Personal and Interpersonal Motivation for Group Projects: Replications of an Attributional Analysis
Sarah E. Peterson & James B. Schreiber
Published online: 7 March 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract We report the results of two replication studies using attribution theory to analyze personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects. Undergraduate students responded to questionnaires containing hypothetical vignettes depicting success or failure outcomes due to ability or effort for dyads working on a group project. Dependent measures included emotions of shame, anger, pity, guilt, pride, and gratitude, as well as expectations for future success. Following the same procedures as the original study, we used doubly multivariate analyses to test 21 theoretical predictions from attribution theory for emotions and expectations for success. We replicated 17 of 21 results across all three studies and 20 of 21 results in the two replication studies. Results are discussed within the context of attribution theory. Keywords Attributions . Cooperative learning . Motivation . Emotions . Expectations for success Research on motivation and small group learning began within the tradition of social interdependence introduced by Deutsch (1949) and expanded upon by Johnson and Johnson (1975) and Slavin (1983) in the tradition of cooperative learning. Researchers originally examined cooperative learning by comparing achievement in cooperative, individual, and competitive goal structures. Characterized as the black box approach (Bossert 198889, p. 233), researchers then drew inferences about how social interdependence motivates students to facilitate each others learning, resulting in higher achievement (Johnson and Johnson 1985; Slavin 1983). The review of research by Slavin (1983) showed that the combination of individual accountability and group rewards increased achievement in a majority of studies. In sum, early research demonstrated the importance of task design, including goal and reward structures, in motivating students to achieve, but most of the research did not directly examine motivation.
S. E. Peterson (*) : J. B. Schreiber Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership, School of Education, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA e-mail: petersonse@duq.edu
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Early consideration of motivation in cooperative learning typically was included in the black box studies examining the effects of various cooperative learning strategies on students of different ages in different subject areas. Much of this research was atheoretical with respect to motivation. For example, numerous studies examined achievement outcomes and added simple researcher-developed questionnaires to report on students attitudes toward cooperative learning. These studies answered the simple question of whether or not students liked cooperative learning, but many used motivational measures that were of questionable quality and did little to advance our understanding of motivation. Although much of the early research showed positive benefits on achievement and attitudes, not all results were positive. Researchers began considering individual differences to determine if some students would benefit more than others from cooperative learning. Examples of individual differences included: preference for group versus individual work (Cantwell and Andrews 2002), need for affiliation (e.g., Chan 1980 81; Klein and Schnackenberg 2000; Quinn and Griffin 1998), need for social approval (Daniels 1994), peer orientation (Hancock 2004; Onwuegbuzie 2001), need for achievement (Quinn and Griffin 1998), uncertainty orientation (Huber et al. 1992) prior academic achievement (Peterson 1993), prior experience with cooperative learning (Ahles and Contento 2006), self-regulation (Helle et al. 2007), and sociability and test anxiety (Sutter and Reid 1969). In general, results of these studies indicated that students experiences in cooperative learning often vary as a function of personal differences, which should be taken into account when considering motivation. As cooperative learning gained popularity in classrooms and found widespread support in the research literature, perspectives on small group learning also expanded to include what is commonly referred to as collaborative learning. Although the terms cooperative learning and collaborative learning are sometimes used interchangeably, some distinctions have been drawn between the two. For example, Webb and Palincsar (1996) defined collaboration as distributed thinking among members of a group. They noted that cooperative learning can take place without collaboration, but that collaboration involves cooperation. Olivares (2007) further distinguished between the two forms of small group learning by noting that cooperative learning is generally more structured, more focused on individual learning, and more teacher directed. In contrast, they describe collaborative learning as less structured, more focused on group problem solving, and more student directed. The studies reported in this paper focus on one specific type of collaborative learning commonly found in many classrooms, namely group projects. As perspectives on small-group learning expanded, so also did types of research for examining motivation. Researchers began using well-established theories of motivation, including attribution, intrinsic motivation, goal orientation, flow, and self-efficacy theories. Research using each of these motivational frameworks has contributed in meaningful ways to our understanding of motivation and collaborative learning. We believe that attribution theory is particularly relevant for examining student motivation for group projects for two reasons. First, attribution theory provides a framework for examining achievement motivation that acknowledges both individual and social processes, which is crucial for advancing our understanding of motivation in collaborative contexts (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Jarvela et al. 2010). From an attributional perspective, students in classrooms serve as judges, both of themselves and their classmates. Personal motivation is influenced when they make causal judgments for their own achievement outcomes on various tasks. Interpersonal motivation is influenced when they judge and are judged in social interactions with their teachers and other students. Students performances on collaborative projects depend on both themselves and their partner, so they can make causal attributions for both their own
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performance and their partners performance. Understanding their achievement motivation, therefore, acknowledges the importance not only of self-directed beliefs and emotions, but also beliefs and emotions directed toward their partners as well as their partners beliefs and emotions directed toward them. The second value in using attribution theory is that it addresses two important components of achievement motivation that are relevant to collaborative contexts: expectancy for success and student emotions. Expectancy for success is important because it is related to students achievement and achievement-related behaviors such as effort, choice, and persistence (e.g., Bandura 1997; Eccles 2005), as well as futureoriented emotions such as hope and anxiety (Pekrun 2006). Emotions are also an important factor in motivation because recent research has shown that emotions are related to achievement and achievement-related variables such as attention, interest, cognitive processes, self-regulation, and engagement (Pekrun et al. 2006; Reschly et al. 2008). Within attribution theory, emotions such as pride, shame, anger, and guilt are considered as outcomes of the attributional process, but outcome emotions are also related to anticipatory emotions such as hope and anxiety (Pekrun 2006). Therefore, both expectancy for success and emotions that arise as outcomes of the attributional process play a significant role in future-oriented achievement motivation. In this paper, we report replications of a study (Peterson and Schreiber 2006) in which we analyzed personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects using Weiners attribution theory as a theoretical framework. Researchers have argued that cumulative knowledge in a discipline develops through replication and extension of initial studies in a given area (e.g., Cohen 1994; Hubbard and Ryan 2000; Robinson and Levin 1997; Stewart 2000; Thompson 1996). In a survey of journal editors and reviewers of social science journals, DeVaney (2001) found that 95% of the respondents believed replications were appropriate for publication. However, others have pointed out that despite the value of replication studies, their contributions to the literature base are typically not important enough to warrant publication in major journals (Stewart 2000). We favor the argument that replications are important for developing a cumulative knowledge base, particularly in areas for which there is insufficient research for conducting meta-analyses. One such area is motivation and collaborative learning. Given the extensive literature base on collaborative learning and the extensive literature base on achievement motivation, research on motivation and collaborative learning is still relatively limited, particularly research that uses well-established theoretical frameworks of motivation (Peterson 2010). We believe it is important to begin accumulating a theory-based body of knowledge on motivation and collaborative learning and that an attributional framework for personal and interpersonal motivation can make valuable contributions.
Attributional Framework of Personal and Interpersonal Motivation Personal motivation Personal motivation, according to Weiner, is influenced by a process in which students as scientists seek to understand themselves by making causal attributions for their achievements (Weiner 2005). These attributions can vary on three dimensions: locus, stability, and controllability, each of which predicts expectations for success and/or emotional reactions. Locus is associated with pride and shame following success or failure, and stability is associated with expectations for future success. Controllability, when combined with locus,
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predicts guilt or shame following failure (Weiner 2005), as well as expectations for success (Weiner 1986). Within collaborative contexts, we might expect students personal motivation to operate in a predictable manner based on well-documented attribution research for personal achievements (Weiner 1986, 2005). Students who attribute failure to internal causes tend to feel more shame in their outcome than do students who attribute failures to external causes, whereas students who attribute success to internal causes tend to feel more pride in their outcome than do students who attribute success to external causes. In addition to numerous research findings with individual tasks (Weiner 1986), these results have also been replicated when undergraduate students engage in collaborative tasks (Peterson 1992, 2002). Students who attribute success to stable causes are more likely to expect success in the future, whereas students who attribute failure to stable causes are more likely to expect continued failure in the future. Students who attribute either success or failure to unstable causes may expect a change in future performance (Weiner 1986). These results were replicated with undergraduates engaged in collaborative tasks, but only for those who believed their outcome was successful (Peterson 1992). Results of research in collaborative contexts have also shown that future expectations depend on both self and partner attributions (Peterson 2002; Peterson and Schreiber 2006) and these relationships are considered in the following section on interpersonal motivation. The third dimension, controllability, distinguishes between attributions that are or are not under the volitional control of the learner. Weiner (1986, 2005) claims that controllability is associated with affective reactions such as shame and guilt, although these relationships have not been clearly established in research on personal motivation for either individual or collaborative tasks. These three dimensions of attributions allow for predictions concerning personal motivation across different achievement tasks, and in this case, during collaborative learning (see Fig. 1). For example, failure attributed to lack of personal ability (internal, stable, uncontrollable) should lead to shame and continued expectations for failure, whereas failure attributed to lack of personal effort (internal, unstable, controllable) should lead to guilt and expectations for future success given greater effort (Weiner 1986). Success attributed to personal ability should lead to pride and continued expectations for future success whereas success attributed to personal effort should lead to pride and expectations for future success only given equal effort (Weiner 1986). It should be noted that these predictions are based on motivation for individual achievement tasks, and therefore may differ in collaborative learning contexts where outcomes are shared and influenced by multiple students, which we consider in the following section. Interpersonal motivation Interpersonal motivation is influenced when students seek to understand achievements by judging others, primarily through the attributional dimension of controllability (Weiner 1986, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2005). In the attributional process, controllability is related to judgments of responsibility and intention. For example, if a person fails due to a controllable cause, that person is judged to be responsible for the failure, since he or she could have chosen otherwise and therefore intended to influence the outcome. On the other hand, failure due to an uncontrollable cause does not result in judgments of responsibility since free choice is not involved (Hareli and Weiner 2002). Based on this distinction, Weiner suggests that in interpersonal settings, achievement failures attributed to lack of ability versus lack of effort will lead to different consequences (Weiner 1994, 2005; see Fig. 2). Failure attributed to others lack of ability is assumed to be uncontrollable; therefore, the person lacking ability is not assumed to be responsible or intentional, and elicits sympathy rather than anger from
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Personal Motivation
Failure
Success
Self Ability
Self Effort
Self Ability
Self Effort
Internal Uncontrollable
Stable
Internable Controllable
Unstable
Stable
Internal Controllable
Unstable
Shame
Continued Failure
Guilt
Possible Improvement
Pride
Continued Success
Pride
Possible Failure
Fig. 1 Theoretical predictions for personal motivation in group projects
others. On the other hand, failure attributed to others lack of effort is assumed to be controllable; therefore, the person who has not put forth effort is assumed to be responsible, intends to influence the outcome, and therefore elicits anger from others (Hareli and Weiner 2002). Success attributed to others ability should not necessarily elicit gratitude since ability is uncontrollable and therefore the other person would not be considered responsible for the outcome. On the other hand, success due to effort should elicit feelings of gratitude since the other is responsible for effort and intentionally influences the outcome (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 1986). Turning to expectations for future success, in interpersonal contexts, Weiner (1994) contends that if we attribute someone elses failure to lack of ability, then we would expect continued failure because ability is stable and uncontrollable. In contrast, if we attribute someone elses failure to lack of effort, then we would expect improvement since effort is unstable and controllable. The role of attributions in collaborative contexts for future expectations is more speculative and has not been explicitly addressed by Weiner. However, based on the role that stability plays in future expectations for individual achievements, one plausible possibility is that the relationships between stability of attributions and future
Interpersonal Motivation
Failure
Success
Partner Ability
Partner Effort
Partner Ability
Partner Effort
Stable
Unstable
Stable
Unstable
Sympathy
Continued Failure
Anger
Possible Improvement
Lack of Gratitude
Continued Success
Gratitude
Possible Failure
Fig. 2 Theoretical predictions for interpersonal motivation in group projects
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expectations in collaborative learning would operate similarly to individual achievement tasks. In this case, failure attributed to others lack of ability should lead to continued expectations for failure since the other s ability is stable and uncontrollable. Likewise, success attributed to others ability should lead to continued expectations for success. Failure attributed to others lack of effort should result in expectations that a future outcome could improve, since the others effort is unstable and controllable. Likewise, success attributed to others effort could lead to expectations for a lower grade in the future since the others effort is unstable and therefore the outcome could change. It is important to note that these predictions are based on assumed dimensional properties of ability and effort which have been widely established in research on personal motivation (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 2005). However, these dimensional properties may shift during collaborative learning, when contributions and outcomes are shared. For example, attributing failure to others lack of effort could lead to expectations for continued failure rather than success if the others lack of effort is perceived as stable rather than unstable. Similarly, students might perceive their own ability as uncontrollable and expect continued failure, but if their partners have high ability and work hard, then they may very well expect future success. It is also important to note that Weiner developed and tested his theoretical claims for interpersonal situations where the judges have a personal interest in the behaviors of others but they may not have an outcome that is dependent on the other s behavior. For example, a teacher who attributes a students failure to lack of ability may feel sympathy toward that student. However, when students engage in collaborative projects, they have a vested interest in their partner s contribution because they jointly determine the outcome. A student may feel sympathy for a classmate who lacks ability because it is uncontrollable, but a student who feels his/her partner s lack of ability negatively influences the outcome on a collaborative project may not feel sympathy because of personal concern over the grade. Therefore, in collaborative learning settings, it is reasonable to expect that failure attributed to the partner s lack of ability may or may not lead to sympathy, but it probably would not result in anger. These attributional relationships are complex because they depend on a number of variables: the outcome of the activity (success/failure), the attributions for both self and partners (e.g., ability and effort), and the perceived dimensions of the attributions (locus, stability, and controllability). Based on this attributional framework for personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative learning, we conducted a study testing 21 theoretical predictions for success and failure on group projects (Peterson and Schreiber 2006). We found that emotions and future expectations are a function of both individual ability and effort and the group partner s ability and effort. We also found that some, but not all, of the theoretical predictions based on individual achievement tasks, in fact differ in collaborative contexts. For example, we found that predictions for future expectations related to the ability and effort of students partners in group projects differed from what would be expected within the context of individual achievement tasks. Students with low self-effort on a collaborative project expected higher grades on future projects, but students with a loweffort partner expected lower grades. In contrast, students with low ability did not differ from students with high ability in their future expectations, but students with high-ability partners expected higher grades on future projects. These results illustrate how personal and interpersonal attributions for collaborative learning tasks interact in complex ways to influence students emotions and expectations. We find these results to be of special importance, because if replicated, they suggest that the dimensions of attributions need to be interpreted differently in collaborative contexts. If
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so, the implications for teachers are significant in terms of forming collaborative groups and facilitating their work. Given the complexity of attributional predictions, the importance of emotions and expectancies for student motivation, and the ubiquity of small group learning in classrooms, we believe it is important to replicate these results before drawing firm conclusions about the role of attributions in motivation for collaborative learning. Successful replications can provide a solid foundation on which to expand and extend attribution theory into the realm of small group learning. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to report the results of two external replications of our original study, in which the same research question was addressed with data from new samples of participants (Robinson and Levin 1997).
Methodology Using the theoretical framework for personal and interpersonal motivation outlined above, we have tested 21 theoretical predictions for failure and ability, failure and effort, success and ability, and success and effort (see Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 for a list of the theoretical predictions). Twelve of these predictions related to personal motivation and nine related to
Table 1 Research predictions and results for failure and ability
Attribution Dependent variable Shame Prediction Original study Study 2 Study 3
Self-ability
Low ability students will feel a greater sense of shame than high ability students Low ability students will feel more pity toward their partners than high ability students Low ability students will not feel a greater sense of guilt than high ability students Low ability students will not differ from high ability students in their expectations for future projects Students with low-ability partners will not feel more pity toward their partners than students with high-ability partners Students with low-ability partners will not feel more anger toward their partners than students with highability partners
Not supported F(1,99) 0 3.48, p 0 0.06 Not supported F(1,99) 0 0.53, p 0 0.69 Supported F(1,99) 0 2.11, p 0 0.15 Supported F(1,100) 0 0.50, p 0 0.483
Pity
Guilt
Future expectations
Partner ability
Pity
Supported F(1,98) 0 0.69, p 0 0.41
Supported F(1,90) 0 0.09, p 0 0.76
Supported F(1,135) 0 130.28, p 0 0.52
Anger
Supported F(1,99) = 0.107, p 0 0.745
Supported F(1,90) 0 1.25, p 0 0.26
Not supported Did not replicate Study 1 or Study 2 F(1,135) 0 130.28, p 0 0.001, partial 2 0 0.49
Future expectations
Students with low-ability partners will not differ from students with highability partners in their expectations for future projects
Not supported F(1,98) 0 30.22, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.23
Not supported F(1,92) 0 17. 04, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.16
294 Table 2 Research predictions and results for failure and effort
Attribution Dependent variable Shame Prediction Original Study
Study 2
Study 3
Self-effort
Students with low self-effort will not feel more shame than students with high self-effort Students with low self-effort will feel less anger toward partner than students with high self-effort Students with low self-effort will feel a greater sense of guilt than students with high self-effort Students with low self-effort will expect greater improvement on future projects than students with high self-effort
Not supported F(1,99) 0 38.98, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.28 Supported F(1,99) 0 69.43, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.54 Supported F(1,99) 0 69.43, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.47 Supported F(1,98) 0 1.421, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.13
Not supported F(1,90) 0 31.28, p 0 0.001, partial 2 0 0.50 Supported F(1,89) 0 54.82, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.38 Supported F(1,90) 0 56.29, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.39 Not supported Did not replicate Study 1 F(1,89) 0 3.89, p 0 0.05
Not supported F(1,135) 0 49.21, p 0 0.001, partial 2 0 0.27 Supported F(1,135) 0 28.43, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.30 Supported F(1,135) 0 139.88, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.51 Not supported Replicated Study 2
Anger
Guilt
Future expectations
F(1,135) 0 7.32, p 0 0.008 Supported F(1,135) 0 165.67, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.59 Not supported F(1,135) 0 165.67, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.55
Partner effort
Anger
Students with low-effort partners will feel more anger toward partner than students with high-effort partners Students with low-effort partners will expect greater improvement on future projects than students with high-effort partners
Supported F(1,99) 0 97.14, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.50 Not supported F(1,98) 0 60.82, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.38
Supported F(1,90) 0 122.43, p 0 000, partial 2 0 0.58 Not supported F(1,90) 0 170.55, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.65
Future expectations
Table 3 Research predictions and results for success and ability

Attribution Self-ability Dependent variable Pride Prediction High-ability students will feel more pride than low-ability students Low ability students will not differ from high ability students in their expectations for future projects Students with highability partners will not feel more gratitude toward their partner than students with lowability partners. Students with low-ability partners will not differ from students with highability partners in their expectations for future projects Original study Not supported F(1,102) 0 10.41, p 0 0.24 Supported F(1,101) 0 1.20, p 0 0.27 Study 2 Not supported F(1,93) 0 3.081, p 0 0.083 Supported F(1,92) 0 0.93, p 0 0.39 Study 3 Not supported F(1,125) 0 2.655, p 0 0.11 Supported F(1,125) 0 0.27, p 0 0.60
Future Expectations
Partner ability
Gratitude
Not supported F(1,125) 0 17.21, p 0 000, partial 2 0 0.12
Future expectations
Supported F(1,101) 0 4.28, p 0 0.041
Not supported Not replicated F(1,92) 0 17.04, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.16
Not supported Replicated study 2 F(1,125) 0 43.26, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.26
Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311 Table 4 Research predictions and results for success and effort
Attribution Self-effort Dependent variable Pride Prediction Students with high self-effort will feel more pride than students with low self-effort Students with low selfeffort will expect greater improvement on future projects than students with high self-effort Students with high-effort partners will feel more gratitude toward their partner than students with loweffort partners Students with loweffort partners will expect greater improvement on future projects than students with high-effort partners Original study 1 Supported F(1,102) 0 153.90, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.60 Supported F(1,101) 0 34.77, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.26 Study 2 Supported F(1,93) 0 164.71, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.64 Not supported Not replicated Study 3 Supported
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F(1,125) 0 274.51, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.69 Not supported Replicated study 2
Future expectations
F(1,92) 0 2.87, p 0 0.094 Supported F(1,97) 0 304.38, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.76 Supported F(1,91) 0 258.92, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.75
F(1,125) 0 1.498, p 0 0.223 Supported F(1,125) 0 301.32, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.71
Partner effort
Gratitude
Future expectations
interpersonal motivation. We focused specifically on effort and ability attributions because students most frequently report these as causes for performance on school tasks (Weiner 1986). In the following sections, we summarize methods used in the original study and where applicable, describe differences in the two replication studies. Participants Participants in the original study included 211 undergraduate and entry level graduate education majors taking educational psychology classes at a large Midwestern university. Their mean age was 24 years, 68% were female, and 98% were Caucasian. Participants in study 2 were 193 freshmen and sophomore education majors at a private mid-Atlantic university. Their mean age was 24.3 years, 72% were female, and over 99% were Caucasian. Participants in study 3 were 281 undergraduates, freshmen through seniors from the same private mid-Atlantic university as study 2. Their mean age was 22.3 years, 75% were female, and 93% were Caucasian. They represented 70 different majors across all schools in the university. Questionnaires We designed our original questionnaires based on the recommendations of Hareli and Weiner (2002) for initial testing of hypotheses for self- and other-directed emotions in interpersonal settings. Namely, they recommended the use of hypothetical scenarios describing simple situations, in which attributional variables are systematically manipulated. We patterned our vignettes on those from previous studies (Juvonen and Murdock 1993; Reyna and Weiner 2001), in which causal ascriptions were factorially combined to represent the attributions of interest. Our participants responded to
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vignettes describing dyads who had completed a collaborative project. The scenarios varied on five attributional factors. Between-subjects factors included achievement outcome (success vs. failure), personal ability (high vs. low), and personal effort (high vs. low); within-subjects factors included partner s ability (high vs. low) and partner s effort (high vs. low). With 32 possible combinations of these factors, we developed eight forms, each comprised of four scenarios. We changed wording of the scenarios only to reflect the different attributional variables. Following is an example with attributional variables indicated in parentheses: Your group got a low grade on your group project (failure). You feel that both you and your partner are naturally smart in this subject (high partner ability and high personal ability). Your partner worked very hard to get a good grade on the project (high partner effort), but you dont believe you put forth as much effort as you should have (low personal effort). After reading each scenario, participants responded to seven questions anchored with sixpoint attitudinal scales. Questions measured their likely feelings about themselves based on their own contribution to the project for pride (extremely proud to not proud at all), shame (extremely ashamed to not ashamed at all), and guilt (extremely guilty to not guilty at all). Questions measured their likely feelings toward their partner based on their partner s contribution to the project for anger (extremely angry to not angry at all), pity (extreme pity to no pity at all), and gratitude (extremely grateful to not grateful at all). Change in expectations for future success was measured with the following question: If you were to work with the same partner on a similar project in the future, how would your grade on the second project compare with the first? (significantly higher to significantly lower). We used the same questionnaires for all three studies. Procedures In the original study and study 2, students who volunteered to participate responded to questionnaires during their education classes. In study 3, student participation was solicited via email and they responded to the questionnaire through Zoomerang. They were offered the chance to win a gift certificate to Starbucks in exchange for their participation. Data analyses We analyzed the data by conducting a series of doubly multivariate analyses with self-ability and self-effort as between-subjects factors and partner ability and partner effort as withinsubjects factors. For each of these tests, comparisons were made between high and low ability (self or partner), or between high and low effort (self or partner). Because 21 hypotheses were being tested, we controlled for type I error by using a Bonferroni adjustment, resulting in an alpha level of 0.002 (a 0 0.05/21) 0 0.0023. We used identical data analysis procedures for all three studies.
Results Results of all three studies are summarized in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 for failure and ability, failure and effort, success and ability, and success and effort, respectively. In the original study, we found support for 13 of our 21 research hypotheses. In study 2, we replicated 18 of 21 main effects from the original study. In study 3, we replicated 17 of the 21 main effects
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from the original study. Two of the three main effects that did not replicate the original study replicated study 2, indicating that study 3 replicated 20 of 21 results from study 2. These results demonstrate remarkable consistency. In the following sections, we detail results across the three studies. Failure outcomes Failure and ability Descriptive statistics for tests involving failure and ability are presented in Table 5. Considering first the results for failure and self-ability, results were consistent across all three studies for all four predictions. We found no significant main effects for selfability on shame, pity, guilt, or future expectations. Therefore, two predictions were supported: failure due to lack of self-ability would not result in guilt, and failure due to lack of self-ability would lead to similar expectations for future performance. Two predictions were not supported: failure due to lack of self-ability would lead to a sense of personal shame and also to a sense of pity. Considering results for failure and partner ability, our prediction that students with lowability partners would not feel more pity toward their partners than students with high-ability partners was supported across all three studies. Concerning anger, the first two studies supported our prediction that students with low-ability partners would not feel more anger toward their partners than students with high-ability partners. However, in study 3, students with low-ability partners did feel significantly more anger toward their partners than those with high-ability partners. This was the only prediction for emotions that was not replicated across all three studies. Contrary to expectations, we found that students with low-ability partners had significantly lower expectations for improvement in a future grade than did students with high-ability partners, and this result was consistent across all three studies. Failure and effort Descriptive statistics for tests involving failure and effort are presented in Table 6. Considering first the results for failure and self-effort, we found that our prediction for shame was not supported, as students felt more shame with low self-effort than with high self-effort, and this was consistent across all three studies. Our predictions for both anger and guilt were supported across all three studies. Students with low self-effort felt less anger toward their partner and more guilt than students with high self-effort. Our prediction for self-effort and future expectations was supported in the original study but not supported in either of the replications. In the original study, as predicted, students with low self-effort expected a future grade to improve more than those with high self-effort. In the two replication studies, these comparisons failed to reach the significance level of 0.002 as indicated by the Bonferroni adjustment, but in study 2 alpha was 0.05 and in study 3 alpha was 0.008, suggesting an important degree of consistency across studies. Considering results for failure and partner effort, our prediction that students would feel more anger toward low-effort partners was supported, and this was consistent across all three studies. Contrary to our predictions, students with high-effort partners expected greater improvement on future projects than students with low-effort partners, and this result was also consistent across all three studies. Success outcomes Success and ability Descriptive statistics for tests involving attributions for success and ability are presented in Table 7. Results for our two theoretical predictions for success and self-ability were consistent across all three studies. Contrary to our predictions, high-ability
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Table 5 Descriptive statistics for failure and ability

Anger Study 2 Study 3 Original study Study 2 Study 3 Original study Study 2 Study 3 Guilt Future Original study Study 2 Study 3
Attribution
Shame
Pity
Original study
Study 2
Study 3
Original study
High self-ability 47 2.05 0.92 47 2.23 0.90 47 2.09 0.80 47 1.94 0.80 1.21 1.78 4.91 2.24 2.43 1.02 65 52 47 1.12 1.16 0.93 0.99 65 5.34 0.88 5.01 2.31 2.57 4.38 65 52 47 65 52 3.10 1.40 52 2.99 1.39 1.05 1.37 1.21 0.81 1.25 5.01 2.54 2.64 5.43 2.65 74 51 47 74 51 1.01 1.12 1.15 1.07 1.42 1.37 47 2.99 1.38 47 3.04 1.31 47 2.84 1.28 4.76 2.42 2.68 4.54 2.92 3.07 74 51 47 74 51 47 74 4.24 1.61 74 5.43 0.81 65 3.04 1.12 65 4.23 1.58 51 5.09 0.77 51 4.78 0.76 51 4.98 0.73 51 4.69 0.88 47 3.78 1.05 47 3.38 1.24 48 3.61 1.19 48 3.15 1.21 74 3.19 1.21 74 2.64 1.17 65 3.41 1.25 65 3.05 1.12
High partner ability
51
47
74
50
2.87
3.25
4.21
1.83
SD
1.35
1.16
1.57
0.88
Low partner ability
51
47
74
50
2.51
3.12
4.19
1.94
SD
1.08
1.26
1.55
0.95
Low self-ability
High partner ability
52
47
65
52
3.11
3.14
4.16
2.17
SD
1.28
1.14
1.71
1.00
Low partner ability
52
47
65
52
3.01
3.14
4.07
2.31
SD
1.32
1.14
1.61
0.98
Ranges for variables are as follows: shame (1 0 not ashamed at all, 6 0 extremely ashamed), pity (1 0 no pity at all, 6 0 extreme pity), anger (1 0 not angry at all, 6 0 extremely angry), guilt (1 0 not guilty at all, 6 0 extremely guilty), future expectations (1 0 grade will be significantly lower, 6 0 grade will be significantly higher)
Table 6 Descriptive statistics for failure and effort

Anger Original Study Study 2 Study 3 Original Study Study 2 Study 3 Guilt Future expectations Original Study Study 2 Study 3
Attribution
Shame
Original study
Study 2
Study 3
High self-effort 51 2.37 1.00 51 2.11 0.98 52 1.30 0.66 52 2.02 1.04 0.98 1.25 1.76 4.08 47 84 52 3.46 1.26 1.15 1.01 1.11 1.90 2.83 4.12 47 84 52 1.37 1.11 0.94 1.21 47 4.00 1.18 47 3.51 1.46 3.24 4.74 1.78 2.66 47 55 51 47 1.36 0.92 1.12 0.83 1.03 55 2.83 1.01 84 5.32 0.93 84 4.08 1.25 3.42 5.36 2.26 1.70 4.68 47 55 51 47 55 50 4.86 0.69 50 4.38 0.90 52 5.49 0.62 52 4.79 0.90 46 3.82 0.69 46 2.67 1.34 48 4.61 1.03 48 2.79 1.41 55 4.50 0.99 55 3.18 0.97 84 4.11 1.46 84 2.56 1.15
High partner effort
51
46
55
2.37
2.91
2.83
SD
1.00
1.06
1.28
Low partner effort
51
46
55
2.11
2.18
2.79
SD
0.98
1.01
1.28
Low self-effort
High partner effort
52
48
84
3.61
3.67
4.51
SD
0.38
1.21
1.29
Low partner effort
52
48
84
3.39
3.64
3.85
SD
1.37
1.37
1.18
Ranges for variables are as follows: shame (1 0 not ashamed at all, 6 0 extremely ashamed), anger (1 0 not angry at all, 6 0 extremely angry), guilt (1 0 not guilty at all, 6 0 extremely guilty), future expectations (1 0 grade will be significantly lower, 6 0 grade will be significantly higher)
299
300 Table 7 Descriptive statistics for success and ability

Attribution Pride Original study High self-ability High partner ability n M SD Low partner ability n M SD Low self-ability High partner ability n M SD Low partner ability n M SD 53 3.87 1.63 53 3.98 1.77 48 3.91 1.55 48 4.11 1.87 66 3.23 1.52 66 2.71 1.75 49 3.42 1.13 49 3.20 1.04 46 3.74 0.89 46 3.76 0.84 53 4.10 1.39 53 4.10 1.46 49 4.38 1.48 49 4.38 1.53 63 3.04 1.54 63 3.07 1.62 52 3.45 0.91 52 3.08 1.10 49 3.79 1.00 49 3.16 1.17 Study 2 Study 3 Gratitude Original Study
Future expectations Study 2 Study 3 original study Study 2 Study 3
63 3.85 0.86 63 3.31 0.76 61 3.45 0.90 61 3.20 0.84
53 4.49 0.89 53 4.26 0.92 52 4.54 0.87 52 4.55 0.86
49 4.76 0.84 49 4.27 0.86 47 4.89 1.10 47 4.22 1.03
63 2.72 1.01 63 2.14 0.99 66 2.61 0.98 66 2.34 0.96
Ranges for variables are as follows: pride (1 0 not proud at all, 6 0 extremely proud), gratitude (1 0 not grateful at all, 6 0 extremely grateful), future expectations (1 0 grade will be significantly lower, 6 0 grade will be significantly higher)
students did not feel more pride for a successful outcome than low-ability students. In support of our predictions, there were no differences between high- and low-ability students in their expectations for future performance. Contrary to expectations for success and partner ability, we found a significant effect for gratitude, indicating that students with a high-ability partner felt significantly more gratitude toward their partners than students with a low-ability partner, and this result was consistent across all three studies. We predicted that students with low-ability partners would not differ from students with high-ability partners in their expectations for future performance. This prediction was not supported in the two replication studies, as we found that students with a high-ability partner expected more improvement on a future project than students with a lowability partner. The prediction was supported in the original study; however, it should be noted that the main effect for differences between the two groups reached traditional levels of significance (a 0 0.04) but failed to reach the adjusted level of significance from the Bonferroni procedure (a 0 0.002). Therefore, there is still considerable consistency across the three studies. Success and effort Descriptive statistics for tests involving success and effort are presented in Table 8. Results concerning pride were consistent across all three studies. As predicted, students with high self-effort felt significantly more pride than students with low self-effort. Results for future expectations were not consistent across all three studies but were consistent for the two replication studies. In the original study, our prediction that students with low self-effort would expect greater improvement on future projects was supported. In the two replication studies, there were no significant differences between students with high and low self-effort. Results examining success and partner effort were consistent across all three studies. As predicted, students with high-effort partners felt significantly more gratitude toward their partners than students with low-effort partners. Concerning future expectations, we predicted
Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311 Table 8 Descriptive statistics for success and effort
Attribution Pride Original study High self-effort High partner effort n M SD Low partner effort n M SD Low self-effort High partner effort n M SD Low partner effort n M SD 53 2.80 1.17 53 2.90 1.24 48 3.86 1.66 49 4.16 1.79 66 2.80 1.59 66 3.16 1.76 52 4.45 1.27 52 2.36 1.16 46 5.01 0.98 46 2.48 1.24 66 4.63 1.22 66 2.06 0.89 52 5.03 0.70 52 4.74 0.96 47 4.97 1.08 47 3.72 1.26 66 53 5.19 0.80 53 5.17 1.10 48 4.10 1.56 49 4.65 1.59 63 3.16 1.65 63 2.97 1.64 49 4.36 1.21 49 1.97 1.01 49 4.55 1.09 49 2.41 1.22 63 4.52 1.24 63 2.30 1.08 53 4.46 0.73 53 3.62 1.02 49 5.06 0.87 49 3.97 0.89 63 Study 2 Study 3 Gratitude Original study Study 2 Study 3 Future expectations Original study Study 2
301
Study 3
3.01 1.33 63 1.72 0.92
3.17 1.14 66 1.94 1.00
Ranges for variables are as follows: pride (1 0 not proud at all, 6 0 extremely proud), gratitude (1 0 not grateful at all, 6 0 extremely grateful), future expectations (1 0 grade will be significantly lower, 6 0 grade will be significantly higher)
that students with low-effort partners would expect greater improvement on future projects. However, we found that students with high-effort partners expected greater improvement than students with low-effort partners. Summary of results In summary, study 2 replicated 18 of 21 results from the original study. Study 3 replicated 17 of 21 results from the original study, and 20 of 21 results from study 2. In all but one of these failures to replicate at the Bonferroni adjusted alpha of 0.002, the results replicated at alpha 0 0.05 or less. These results suggest remarkable consistency across studies, lending confidence to conclusions that can be made with respect to an attributional analysis of motivation for collaborative projects. Approximately half of the results supported our original theoretical predictions, suggesting that the attributional process operates somewhat differently in collaborative vs. individual achievement contexts. In the following section, we discuss these results first for emotions and then for future expectations.
Discussion Emotions Results for emotions were very consistent, with 12 of the 13 predictions for emotions being replicated across all three studies. These results allow us to be confident in moving forward in using attributions for student ability and effort to predict outcome emotions from collaborative projects. Interestingly, however, we found support for only eight of the 13 predictions we derived from the research literature based on attribution theory.
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Shame and guilt Weiner has proposed that failure attributed to lack of ability leads to shame because it is internal and uncontrollable, whereas failure attributed to lack of effort leads to guilt because it is internal, controllable, and the student could have worked harder (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 1986, 1994). Across all three of our studies, we found that Weiner s prediction for guilt was supported, because low-effort students felt more guilt than high-effort students following failure. Guilt is a moral emotion that follows from violating social norms and hopefully results in actions to make amends (Sheikh and Janoff-Bulman 2010; Weiner 2006). A potential benefit of guilt in collaborative projects is that students who do not contribute their fair share will understand that they have violated a personal standard and will avoid the negative emotion in the future by working harder (Peterson and Schreiber 2006). In interpersonal contexts, guilt and anger are also closely related, such that communication of anger can elicit a reaction of guilt (Giner-Sorolla and Espinosa 2011), and communication of guilt can mitigate an angry response (Karasawa 2001; Weiner 1994). Therefore, within collaborative learning contexts, these negative emotions have the potential of triggering more positive behaviors (Turner and Schallert 2001; Weiner 2006). In contrast to guilt, Weiners prediction for shame was not supported in our studies, because students felt ashamed for low effort but not for low ability. Lewis (2000) argued that shame is experienced when students violate a moral standard; therefore, students who fail to contribute to a collaborative outcome would feel shame and would not distinguish between shame and guilt. The fact that our students reported feeling shame for low effort but not low ability suggests they believe that a low-effort student was violating a moral standard, but a low-ability student was not violating a moral standard. Pekruns control-value theory of achievement emotions offers another perspective on these results. Pekrun proposed that outcome emotions such as shame and guilt are control-dependent, where subjective control is defined as the perceived causal influence over the outcomes (Pekrun 2006, 2009; Skinner 1995). In collaborative contexts, action-control appraisals would be based on students judgments of whether or not someone in the group could perform the necessary actions to accomplish the task. Actionoutcome appraisals would depend on students perceptions of whether or not these actions would produce a successful outcome (Pekrun et al. 2011). Because perceived control over either the actions or the outcomes could be due to either oneself or ones partner, emotions following a group task should in turn depend on whether students perceive the outcome to be caused by themselves or their partner. In contrast, in attribution theory, emotions depend on whether or not the attributional causes of success or failure, such as effort and ability, can be controlled (Pekrun 2006, 2009). From the perspective of control-value theory then, students would experience a sense of shame if they perceive that they are the cause of failure on a collaborative project, regardless of whether it was attributed to lack of self-ability or self-effort. Because students in our studies did not report shame for low ability, from a control-value perspective they probably did not perceive themselves to be the cause of the groups failure. This result could have positive consequences, because if the failure is perceived as being shared, thus reducing shame, then there is less likelihood that the student would withdraw or experience helplessness (Hareli and Weiner 2002). This benefit provides one argument in support of the use of mixed-ability groups in collaborative learning. However, previous research has demonstrated mixed results on achievement for the use of heterogeneous ability groups (Cheng et al. 2008; Slavin 1995). Future research could shed light on how emotions influence learning and motivation for students of varying ability in collaborative learning contexts with heterogeneous and homogeneous ability groups. As Pekrun (2009) has pointed out, most of the research on emotions has focused mainly on individual emotions, but future research
303
should address emotions within social and cultural contexts. Specifically, it would be beneficial to examine activity-related emotions while students are engaged in the process of collaborative learning, in order to determine how students control appraisals influence emotions toward partners of varying ability and effort. Pity and anger Pity and anger are emotions directed toward others that result from judgment about the other s responsibility. According to Weiner, pity follows judgments of lack of ability, because ability is uncontrollable by others, and thus, they are not held responsible. Pity is a moral emotion that motivates people toward help giving to the low-ability other (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 1986, 1994, 2006). However, we hypothesized that students would not feel pity toward low-ability partners because of their vested interest in the outcome of the project, and our results supported this prediction across all three of our studies. These results suggest that collaborative learning contexts in which students share a joint outcome may not promote prosocial help-giving behaviors. On the other hand, because the outcome is shared, higher-ability students may be motivated to help their lower-ability partners, particularly if the outcome depends on successful contributions from both partners. Help giving is particularly important because research suggests benefits both for students who receive help as well as those who provide help (Webb and Mastergeorge 2003). According to Johnson and Johnson (2009), students are most likely to facilitate the learning of their partners when there is positive interdependence, or when group goals are achieved only when members of the team also achieve their individual goals. Such positive interdependence fosters promotive interaction, where students facilitate each other s learning and contributions. Further research should be conducted to examine how feelings of pity or the absence of pity toward low-ability partners may influence help giving in different structures. This research could extend previous work on the role of help-giving in collaborative learning contexts by exploring how attributions and emotions both influence and are influenced by help-giving behaviors. Considering anger, attribution theory suggests that students will feel angry toward partners who dont put forth effort, because their partner could have behaved differently, and therefore is judged responsible (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 1986, 1994, 2006). This is particularly likely when others behavior interferes with students as judges reaching their goals (Hareli and Weiner 2002). Across all three studies, we found support for this prediction, as students reported significantly more anger toward low-effort partners, commonly referred to as the social loafing phenomenon. We also found consistent support for our prediction that this relationship would be moderated by level of effort of the student as judge. When students themselves do not put forth effort (the social loafers), they are less angry with low-effort partners. As previously mentioned, communication of anger toward a low-effort partner can potentially serve to provoke greater effort (Weiner 2006). In contrast to anger for low self-effort, attribution theory predicts that students would not feel anger toward low-ability partners, because the partners would not be judged responsible for their lack of ability (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 1986, 1994, 2006). This is our only prediction for emotions that was not replicated across all three studies. In the first two studies, we found support for the prediction, as students did not feel anger toward low-ability partners. In study 3, however, students felt more anger toward low-ability partners. One possible explanation for this discrepancy is that education students (the participants in the first two studies) are less likely to be angry with classmates than the more general college population. Perhaps students in other discipline areas are more competitive students. Although the survey asked them to report their feelings toward their partner, they may have reported a more general sense of anger at being assigned to a low-ability partner. From the perspective of
304
control-value theory, they would appraise the low-ability partner as influencing the unsuccessful outcome and therefore feel angry (Pekrun 2006). Another potential explanation relates to students views of ability as fixed or changeable. According to Dweck and Master (2009), students who view intelligence as fixed would not see effort as beneficial for someone who has low ability. On the other hand, students who view ability as changeable would believe that a low-ability student can improve by working harder (Dweck 2010). For these students, the attributional dimensions of ability would be perceived as unstable and controllable and therefore would elicit anger toward low-ability partners. This is another area in need of further research on emotions in homogeneous and heterogeneous ability groups, because negative motivational consequences will accrue for lower-achieving students who are working hard but who are the targets of partner anger. Building on the work of Jarvenoja and Jarvela (2009) on emotion control in collaborative learning, it would be interesting to examine strategies that teachers could use to help students develop and use emotional regulation skills when working with classmates. Pride and gratitude Turning to emotions following success, Weiner suggests that pride is a self-directed emotion experienced when students succeed due to either ability or effort, because pride is an internal cause (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 1986). Therefore, we predicted that both high-ability and high-effort students would feel more pride in a successful outcome than their low-ability and low-effort counterparts. Although our results for both predictions were consistent across all three studies, only the prediction for effort was supported. Students felt pride for high effort but not for high ability. These results are consistent with an earlier study by Nurmi (1991), who found that undergraduates experienced greater pride for success attributed to effort rather than ability. From the perspective of attribution theory, these results suggest that pride is related to the dimension of controllability because effort is controllable but ability is not. Lewis (2000) made a similar claim: Because [pride] is associated with a particular action, individuals have available to themselves the means by which they can reproduce the state (p. 360). If this is the case, then students should experience pride when success is due to their internal, controllable efforts. Pekruns control-value theory of achievement emotions offers another perspective on the results for pride. As mentioned previously, Pekrun proposed that outcome emotions, including pride and gratitude, are control-dependent, where subjective control is defined as the perceived causal influence over actions or outcomes (Pekrun 2006: Skinner 1995). From this perspective, students would experience a sense of pride if they perceive that success on a collaborative project was attributed to either their ability or effort. Because students in our studies did not report pride for high ability, from a control-value perspective they probably did not perceive the group outcome as being caused by their high ability, which is the same argument as that made for not experiencing shame for low ability. Earlier we suggested that lack of shame for low ability could have positive consequences in collaborative learning, because if the failure is perceived as being shared, thus reducing shame, then there is less likelihood that the student would withdraw or experience helplessness (Hareli and Weiner 2002). On the other hand, the implication for pride is less positive, because pride has been related to motivation, effort, flexible strategy use, attention, self-regulation, and achievement on academic tasks (Pekrun et al. 2002). Ideally, we would want students to experience pride for both ability and effort. Attribution theory posits that gratitude is an other-directed emotion experienced for a successful outcome, but only when the other person is responsible and intends to influence the outcome. Therefore, we predicted that students with high-effort partners would feel more gratitude because effort is controllable and intentional, making the partner responsible for
305
the outcome. In contrast, we predicted that students with high-ability partners might not feel gratitude toward their partners because ability is not controllable or intentional (Hareli and Weiner 2002). Across all three studies, we found that students felt gratitude for partners with both high effort and high ability. These results suggest that gratitude in collaborative learning contexts does not necessarily depend on intentional actions. Students may have experienced a more generalized sense of gratitude for having been assigned to a high-ability partner. For example, Roseman (1991) found that gratitude can be experienced for positive outcomes attributed to self in addition to others. As with pride and shame, control-value theory explains that students would feel gratitude for high-ability partners if they perceive that their partner influenced the successful outcome (Pekrun 2006). Overall, our results suggest that effort plays a more important role in emotions than ability. Effort is typically perceived as controllable, and therefore prompts judgments of responsibility in self and others, leading to moral emotions of guilt and anger in social interactions (Weiner 2006). Communication of these emotions can prompt a change in behavior of collaborative partners. Anger is communicated when the other is judged to be responsible for lack of effort. If communicated, partner responds with guilt or regret and works harder. Therefore, effort influences emotions and is influenced by emotions. In collaborative learning contexts, students can learn to engage in self-regulation of their emotions and behaviors as well as shared regulation among group members (Jarvenoja and Jarvela 2009; Volet and Jarvela 2001). As a result, collaborative learning provides a context within which students can learn to develop both personal responsibility for their actions and emotional self-regulation skills. Teachers can facilitate this learning by structuring collaborative activities to maximize students efforts and positive emotions. Several elements of collaborative learning are important for encouraging students to put forth appropriate effort and therefore experience positive emotions. A large body of research has shown that positive interdependence, individual accountability, and promotive interaction encourage students to contribute appropriately as well as facilitate the learning of their group mates (Johnson and Johnson 2009). Furthermore, teachers can facilitate the effectiveness of small groups by engaging them in group processing, whereby students reflect on behaviors that help or hinder group progress and make adjustments to increase their chances of success. Through group processing, teachers can scaffold appropriate social interaction and self-regulation skills. They can also provide feedback to groups as well as individual students to improve their functioning. Group processing has been shown to increase the effectiveness of groups by increasing their efforts, reducing social loafing, clarifying their goals, and increasing collective efficacy (Johnson and Johnson 2009). When all of these important elements of collaborative learning are in place, the attributions that lead to negative emotions (primarily low effort) should be minimized. Expectations for future success Most of the results for future expectations, with some qualification, were replicated across the three studies. Five of eight results were replicated across all three studies. Two additional results failed to replicate at the alpha level corrected by the Bonferroni adjustment but were replicated at alpha 0 0.05 or better. For the remaining prediction, results were consistent for both of the replication studies but not with the original study. Each of these will be discussed in turn. Self-variables According to attribution theory, expectations for future success are closely tied to stability and controllability of attributions. Therefore, students who attribute failure to
306
lack of ability should expect continued failure, whereas students who attribute success to high ability will expect continued success. Students who attribute failure to lack of effort should expect improved performance given greater effort because effort is unstable and controllable, whereas students who attribute success to high effort will expect continued success only with continuing effort (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 1986, 2000). Both of our predictions for self-variables related to expectations for success following failure outcomes were supported. As predicted by attribution theory, we found that self-ability did not influence future expectations, as low-ability students did not differ from high-ability students and this result was consistent across all three studies. Because ability is stable and uncontrollable, future performance was expected to remain the same. Similarly, our prediction for self-effort was supported, as students with low self-effort expected more improvement than those with high self-effort. This result was consistent across all three studies at alpha 0 0.05 or better, but the two replication studies did not meet the Bonferroni adjusted alpha of 0.002. For the most part, therefore, results for both ability and effort are consistent with predictions for expectancy on future achievement tasks following failure. Turning to success, attribution theory suggests that ability should not influence a change in expectations for future success. Regardless of ability, students should expect continued success. In contrast, effort might influence expectations for future success, because students should understand the outcome could change if their effort changes (Weiner 1986, 2000). Based on this reasoning, we predicted that high- and low-ability students would not differ in their expectations for future success and this prediction was supported across all three studies. We also predicted that low-effort students would expect greater improvement because they could work harder. This prediction was supported in the original study but it was not supported in either of the replication studies. As previously mentioned, effort is typically assumed to be unstable; however, if students perceive their effort to be relatively stable, then they are unlikely to expect a change in subsequent outcomes. Another possibility is that students did not differ in their expectations for future performance because the outcome was already successful. Partner variables Based on the same reasoning for stability and controllability, we predicted that partner ability would not influence future expectations but that partner effort would influence future expectations, with students having low-effort partners expecting greater improvement than students with high-effort partners. Neither of these predictions was supported. Instead, we found that students with high-ability partners expected greater improvement on future projects than students with low-ability partners, regardless of the outcome. This finding was statistically significant for both success and failure across all three studies with the minor exception that alpha was 0.04 for success in the original study. We also found that students with high-effort partners expected more improvement than students with low-effort partners, regardless of the outcome, and this result was consistent across all three studies. Based on these results, it is apparent that the relationships between stability and controllability with future expectations operate differently when judging partners in collaborative learning contexts. From the perspective of attribution theory, this makes sense particularly with respect to effort, because even though individuals are likely to perceive their own effort as unstable and controllable, they may very well perceive their partner s effort as stable and not under the control of the individual. In this regard, it is important to note again that Weiner s predictions related to the dimensions of stability and controllability are based on assumptions about how these dimensions of common attributions such as ability and effort are perceived (Hareli and Weiner 2002; Weiner 2005). Therefore, if students perceive their partner s effort as stable, then they are not likely to expect improvement in the outcome.
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Control-value theory similarly places importance on students perceptions of causes, focusing on the person who causes the outcomes. Within this framework, if students perceive that the failure outcome is caused by either lack of effort or lack of ability in their partner, then they would lack hope for future improvement. Given several inconsistencies in results across the three studies, as well as discrepancies from our original predictions, it is clear that further research is needed on how students causal attributions and their perceived dimensions of these attributions influence their expectations for future success. Nonetheless, we believe that our results have important implications for teachers using collaborative learning. It is clear that collaborative learning contexts may decrease students perceived control over the outcome when compared with individual tasks, resulting in lowered expectations for future success. This would most likely occur when students are asked to engage in multiple tasks with the same partners, a type of collaborative learning referred to as base groups (Johnson and Johnson 2009). In a study with undergraduate education majors, Jarvenoja and Jarvela (2009) found that students experienced increasing challenges with teamwork and collaboration as they moved through three collaborative tasks in a semester course. Teamwork and collaboration included factors such as students who were not fully committed, who had different standards of work, who were not equal, who were easily distracted or who had different understanding of the task, all of which relate to ability or effort attributions. Although achievement data were not reported, it is likely that these students experienced decreasing expectations for success as their challenges increased. Therefore, it is important for teachers to understand not only the important elements of collaborative learning that promote individual accountability and responsibility, but also to understand the consequences of asking students to partner with the same students on repeated collaborative tasks since they are unlikely to expect improvement on future tasks if their partners are lower ability or do not contribute equally to the group outcome.
Conclusions and Future Research Avenues Research on motivation for small-group learning is limited, particularly research that is based on well-established theories of motivation. Attribution theory provides a rich theoretical framework for addressing questions concerning personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative learning and to our knowledge the original study is the only published study of its kind. We designed these studies using vignettes depicting simple collaborative learning scenarios based on the suggestion of Hareli and Weiner (2002) that they have proven effective for exploring preliminary assumptions about emotions. Before expanding into authentic classroom contexts as a next step, and given the complexity of the predictions and results, we determined that it was important to first conduct replication studies, for a replication is worth a thousandth p value (Levin 1995). From a research methodology perspective, replication studies are important because the replication of observations provides evidence that the results are not limited to the initial participant characteristics, sites, or times of data collection (Levin 1998; Robinson and Levin 1997). We believe these replication studies provide remarkably consistent results across a number of theoretical predictions. The successful replications provide confidence in the appropriateness and utility of attribution theory as a motivational framework for future research examining motivation for collaborative learning. Although attribution theory has been used previously to examine interpersonal motivation, it had not been systematically tested in collaborative contexts where students work together on school achievement tasks. Results of this study, especially for emotions, provide confidence that the original results are generalizable to other samples.
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Because these studies were conducted only with college students responding to vignettes, it will be important to extend this theoretical framework to research in authentic collaborative settings with students of various different ages and in different subject areas. Our studies suggest that some aspects of the attributional process, particularly expectations for future success, operate differently in collaborative settings than in individual settings. From the perspective of both attribution theory and control-value theory, students perceptions of the causes for academic outcomes, considering the influence of both the students and their partners, are crucial in understanding both the emotional outcomes of collaborative tasks and students future expectations. From the perspective of attribution theory, it is also important to determine how students perceive the dimensions of attributions such as stability and controllability. Our studies did not directly assess students perceptions of the attributional dimensions so it is important for future research to address these important variables when considering the differences between individual and collaborative academic tasks. In addition, it will be important to examine a variety of collaborative learning structures and tasks, particularly because students attributions and perceived control are likely influenced by the way in which collaborative learning tasks are structured. For example, perceived control may differ considerably depending on whether or not there is a joint outcome such as a group grade versus individual grades. Research on emotions and motivation has expanded significantly since publication of our original study in 2006. Attribution theory has traditionally focused on what Pekrun (2006) calls outcome emotions, but emotions experienced before and during achievement tasks have also been shown to be related to achievement motivation, so we believe it will be fruitful to expand attribution theory as a motivational framework for examining emotions throughout the achievement process. Extending our replications and expanding into a variety of collaborative contexts will require a variety of research methodologies. Quantitative measures and/or interviews could be administered following feedback on collaborative tasks to assess students attributions and perceptions of important variables such as partners effort, ability, and control over the outcomes. Hareli and Weiner (2002) recommended using content analyses of recollections of previous experiences, combined with rating scales measuring attributions involved in the situations. They also recommended the use of diaries combined with rating scales for tracking and reporting emotions during the actual experiences. A less intrusive method of assessing emotions and attributions during collaborative activities would be to use stimulated recall procedures while participants view videos of previously recorded group work. Finally, technology can be used to capture collaborative learning interactions in online environments, providing rich information that can be analyzed using mixed methods approaches. Based on results of our three studies, we feel confident in offering the following propositions for motivation and collaborative learning, to be further examined with different collaborative structures, expanded methodologies, and varying age groups and subject areas: 1. Students ability will not influence emotions or expectations for future success following either success or failure. 2. Students effort will influence shame, guilt, anger toward partner, and future expectations following failure. 3. Partner s ability will influence gratitude and future expectations but not pity. 4. Partner s effort will influence gratitude, anger, and future expectations. Relationships that remain unclear and merit further research include: 1. How student effort influences future expectations following success. 2. How partner ability influences anger.
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These studies contribute to the growing body of research on the important role of emotions in learning and motivation. Having established attribution theory as a viable theoretical framework for understanding emotions and expectancies within collaborative contexts, future research should expand and extend these studies to deepen our understanding of motivation for collaborative learning and the implications for effective teaching.
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Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311 DOI 10.

Published online: 7 March 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Fig. 1 Theoretical predictions for personal motivation in group projects

Fig. 2 Theoretical predictions for interpersonal motivation in group projects

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Supported F(1,98) 0 0.69, p 0 0.41

Supported F(1,90) 0 0.09, p 0 0.76

Supported F(1,135) 0 130.28, p 0 0.52

Supported F(1,99) = 0.107, p 0 0.745

Supported F(1,90) 0 1.25, p 0 0.26

Not supported F(1,98) 0 30.22, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.23

Not supported F(1,92) 0 17. 04, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.16

Not supported F(1,135) 0 46.61, p 0 0.001, partial 2 0 0.26

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Table 3 Research predictions and results for success and ability

Not supported F(1,97) 0 16.50, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.29

Not supported F(1,91) 0 10.041, p 0 0.002, partial 2 0 0.10

Not supported F(1,125) 0 17.21, p 0 000, partial 2 0 0.12

Supported F(1,101) 0 4.28, p 0 0.041

Not supported Not replicated F(1,92) 0 17.04, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.16

Not supported Replicated study 2 F(1,125) 0 43.26, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.26

F(1,125) 0 274.51, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.69 Not supported Replicated study 2

F(1,125) 0 1.498, p 0 0.223 Supported F(1,125) 0 301.32, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.71

Not supported F(1,101) 0 40.93, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.16

Not supported F(1,92) 0 91.74, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.50

Not supported F(1,125) 0 110.12, p 0 0.000, partial 2 0 0.47

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Table 5 Descriptive statistics for failure and ability

High partner ability

Low partner ability

High partner ability

Low partner ability

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Table 6 Descriptive statistics for failure and effort

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

High partner effort

Low partner effort

High partner effort

Low partner effort

300 Table 7 Descriptive statistics for success and ability

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Future expectations Study 2 Study 3 original study Study 2 Study 3

63 3.85 0.86 63 3.31 0.76 61 3.45 0.90 61 3.20 0.84

53 4.49 0.89 53 4.26 0.92 52 4.54 0.87 52 4.55 0.86

49 4.76 0.84 49 4.27 0.86 47 4.89 1.10 47 4.22 1.03

63 2.72 1.01 63 2.14 0.99 66 2.61 0.98 66 2.34 0.96

3.01 1.33 63 1.72 0.92

3.17 1.14 66 1.94 1.00

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311

Educ Psychol Rev (2012) 24:287311