Students' Test Performances

Abstract
To identify the dimensions underlying students' causal attributions for their test performance, attribution ratings obtained from high-school students immediately after they received their grades on a test were subjected to a principal components analysis. The results revealed that factors resembling Weiner's theoretical stability, locus, and control dimensions accounted for a substantial portion of the variance in students' ratings. Correlational analyses revealed the influence of test anxiety, performance, and satisfaction on students' use of the causal dimensions. The implications of the results for the measurement of "dimension scores" are discussed.