Effects of Varying Performance Sets and Outcome on the Expectations,Attributions,and Persistence of Boys with Learning Disabilities

Forty-eight learning disabled fourth-and fifth-grade boys were matched with 48 non-learning-disabled boys, given a task described as school related or not, and told that they had either succeeded or failed. Expectations and attributions were measured on the task and persistence was assessed on a subsequent task. Results did not consistently indicate learned helpless behaviors among the LD sample. Although LD boys tended to attribute outcomes to external forces, they did not evidence lower performance expectations or show greater expectancy shifts following outcome information compared to non-LD boys. Further, LD boys showed greater persistence than non-LD boys. Providing subjects with a performance set as to whether the task was school related or not made little difference. The findings are interpreted within Atkinson's (1964) model of achievement motivation and implications of the model for learning disabilities are drawn.