Abstract
The present study was designed to draw the comparison of the academic achievement of high and low
attribution groups and to find out the effect of these causal attributions on students’ subsequent
academic achievement. Sample of the present study was 490 tenth grade students from Rawalpindi and
Islamabad districts of Pakistan. Out of these 490 students 260 belonged to mainstream schools and 230
came from religious schools. The design of study was causal comparative. The data was analysed by using
the techniques of frequency distribution, mean, standard deviation, median, quartile deviations and t-
test. The conclusions of the study depicted that there was worth mentioning diversity between the
academic achievement of two groups of students, that is, intrinsically motivated students with high
causal attributions and extrinsically motivated students with low causal attributions, consequently
confirming Weiner’s attribution theory. It is concluded here that the students who experience success
usually attribute their failure to external and uncontrollable factors and usually consider themselves as
helpless in the face of any achievement related task.
