Fred's Attributions Case Study

Signature Assignment #3: Motivation

Content of the Attribution Internal/External Stable/Unstable Controllable/Uncontrollable
Fred’s Attribution in Math Internal Stable Uncontrollable
Bobby’s Attribution in Math Internal Unstable Controllable

For Fred’s attributions, based on the evidence provided, he believes his relationship with math is
External because he cannot do math, and has constantly failed math in the past which makes
Fred believe that he cannot do anything else to learn math. Internal basically states that people are affected by themselves rather than the environment, and because of Fred’s lack of ability to learn math his attribution is Internal. Fred also falls under Stable as another attribute because he
believes
He knows that if he keeps trying and doesn’t give up he will be able to improve his math grade. Even relating math to his interests seems to have worked for Bobby. Fred has an Entity View of Intelligence when it comes to his math ability. Entity View of
Intelligence is the basic understanding that people are given abilities to do certain things like math for instance. Because Fred is not able to learn math, he feels that he lacks the ability to learn math problems. Fred also believes that the more he works to learn math the more obvious it becomes that he lacks the ability to have math naturally come to him. Unlike Fred, Bobby has an
Incremental View of Intelligence when it comes to learning math. Bobby believes that the more effort he puts into learning math the more intelligence he is activating which will allow him to learn math to his fullest advantage. Bobby believes that working hard at something allows you to really understand it rather than just having the ability or not having the ability to learn math. Fred and Bobby are very different not only when it comes to learning math but also when it comes to the goals. Because Fred his intimidated by how his performance will be judged,
Unlike Fred, however Bobby deals with learning goals. Learning goals allow learners to compare their success to previous success to determine their improvements. Learning goals allow students to talk about their failure and still have motivation to learn and do better. Students like Bobby are focused on improvement of his mathematic skills, and mastery of certain tasks. Mr. Foster is using the concepts of Intrinsic (Interest) Task Value and Utility Task Value to motivate his math students by allowing the students to find value in learning math. Intrinsic
(Interest) Task Value deals with a learner who finds a particular task valuable because there is some enjoyment associated with the task. By using baseball percentages as a means of teaching a particular math section Mr. Foster is allowing his students to find enjoyment in math which will allow them to want to learn math and do better when it comes to their performance on particular tasks. Utility Task Value is when one task is completed to enhance the completion of a