Online Attributional Retraining and Self-Esteem: Assessing Cognitive, Emotional, and Learning Outcomes in College Students

• In Event: Antecedents and Consequences of Emotions in Learning

Abstract

Attributional retraining (AR) is a motivational intervention that encourages students to adopt controllable attributions for past poor performance in order to help them improve on future academic tasks. Past in-person and internet-based AR research has found that AR effects on academic performance outcomes were moderated by self-esteem. These studies have focused exclusively on achievement and have neglected to examine cognitive and emotional outcomes. The present study investigated how internet-based AR impacted learning strategies, attributions, emotions, and academic expectations in college students as moderated by their self-esteem levels. Results revealed the high self-esteem students who received AR reported lower elaborative learning strategy use and more uncontrollable attributions relative to high self-esteem controls and students in the low self-esteem AR group.

Authors

• Kyle Adam Hubbard, McGill University

• Rebecca Lynn Maymon, McGill University

• Marina Astahova, University of Konstanz

• Nathan C. Hall, McGill University