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Explanatory Style and College Students with ADHD and LD

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Title: Explanatory Style and College Students with ADHD and LD
Language: English
Authors: Shmulsky, Solvegi, Gobbo, Ken
Source: Journal of Attention Disorders. 2007 10(3):299-305.
Availability: SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 7
Publication Date: 2007
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Descriptors: College Students, Grade Point Average, Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorders, Language Impairments, Hyperactivity, Attribution Theory, Correlation, Scores, Postsecondary Education, Academic Achievement
Assessment and Survey Identifiers: Attribution Style Questionnaire
DOI: 10.1177/1087054706292103
ISSN: 1087-0547
Abstract: Objective: This study uses the Attribution Style Questionnaire (ASQ) to measure the causal thinking of 42 college students with diagnosed language-based learning disabilities (LD), ADHD, or co-occurring ADHD and LD. Attribution style, or explanatory style, is a term used to describe the tendencies of individuals to think that the causes of meaningful events are internal or external, global or specific, and stable or unstable. Method: No significant differences in explanatory styles are found among the three subgroups. The study also investigates whether there is a relationship between explanatory style and grades. Results: Significant positive correlations are found between ASQ scores and grade point averages for the subgroup with co-occurring ADHD and LD and for the three subgroups combined. Conclusion: These findings are significant because they continue to clarify factors related to the postsecondary success of students with LD and attention deficit disorders. (Contains 2 tables.)
Abstractor: As Provided
Number of References: 35
Entry Date: 2008
Accession Number: EJ804386
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0053241469;gs001feb.07;2010Sep08.14:37;v2.2.460</anid> <title id="AN0053241469-1">Explanatory Style and College Students With ADHD and LD </title> <p>299 Explanatory Style and College Students With ADHD and LD Solvegi Shmulsky Ken Gobbo Landmark College Objective: This study uses the Attribution Style Questionnaire (ASQ) to measure the causal thinking of 42 college students with diagnosed language-based learning disabilities (LD), ADHD, or co-occurring ADHD and LD. Attribution style, or explanatory style, is a term used to describe the tendencies of individuals to think that the causes of meaningful events are internal or exter- nal, global or specific, and stable or unstable. Method: No significant differences in explanatory styles are found among the three subgroups. The study also investigates whether there is a relationship between explanatory style and grades. Results: Significant positive correlations are found between ASQ scores and grade point averages for the subgroup with co-occurring ADHD and LD and for the three subgroups combined. Conclusion: These findings are significant because they continue to clarify factors related to the postsecondary success of students with LD and attention deficit disorders. (J. of Att. Dis. 2007; 10(<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref1">3</reflink>) 299-305) Keywords: ADHD; college students; language Individuals with learning disabilities (LD) and attention disorders participate in higher education now more than ever, and many of them are faced with significant chal- lenges (Farrell, 2003; Shaw-Zirt, Popali-Lehane, Chaplin, & Bergman, 2005), while the colleges and universities they attend evolve toward providing education accessible to all kinds of learners (Farrell, 2003; Mangrum & Strichart, 2000). Why some students with disabilities fare well in college and others do not is a question that has occupied researchers, and they have uncovered psycho- logical, social, and environmental factors related to suc- cess for college students with LD (Gerber & Reiff, 1994; Miller & Fritz, 1998; Vogel, Hruby, & Adelman, 1993; Vogel, 2002). Descriptions of cognitive variables related to success for individuals with LD are varied, but they generally include meta-cognition, realistic self-appraisals, and appropriate goal setting (Shmulsky, 2003). This cur- rent study examines one cognitive variable, explanatory style, to find out if it can predict the academic perfor- mance of college students with learning differences. Explanatory style or attributional style, which is one's pattern of thinking about the causes of events, is a cogni- tive factor related to various measures of success, such as grade point average (GPA), quitting, job performance, and health recovery (Buchanan & Seligman, 1995). Explana- tory style varies along three dimensions: internal-external, global-specific, and stable-unstable. Optimists are loosely defined as those who habitually make internal, global, and stable attributions for positive events and external, specific, and unstable attributions for negative events, and pessimists are those who tend to do the opposite. This study investigates whether explanatory style is pre- dictive of success, as measured by GPA, for college students with LD and attention disorders. If explanatory style does predict GPA, then it will add to the body of knowledge of factors that are associated with the success of college students with ADHD/LD, ADHD, and LD. ADHD and Explanatory Style Research on the explanatory style of individuals with attention disorders falls into two categories: comparisons between individuals with ADHD and control groups and correlations between explanatory style and other mea- sures of interest, such as depression level. Specific find- ings include the following: Middle school boys with Journal of Attention Disorders Volume 10 Number 3 February 2007 299-305 2007 Sage Publications 10.1177/1087054706292103 <ulink href="http://jad.sagepub.com">http://jad.sagepub.com</ulink> hosted at <ulink href="http://online.sagepub.com">http://online.sagepub.com</ulink> Authors' Note: This project was supported by Landmark College, with funds from a 5-year grant (2000 to 2005) for $1.75 million from the United States Department of Education Title III Strengthening Institutions Program. Address corre- spondence to Solvegi Shmulsky, Landmark College, Psychology Department, Putney, VT 05346; sshmulsky@landmark.edu. ADHD were more likely to cite internal explanations for positive events and external causes for negative events than control groups, and although the correlation between depression and explanatory style held for controls, it did not appear for the ADHD group (Hoza, Pelham, Milich, Pillow, & McBride, 1993). No differences were found between middle school students with and without ADHD in terms of the internality of their casual explanations, but individuals with ADHD viewed their negative behav- iors as more global and stable in history than typically developing students (Kaidar, Weiner, & Tannock, 2003). Children with ADHD who saw medication as an exter- nal, unstable cause as the primary reason for negative and positive behaviors had lower self-esteem and were more prone to depression than students with ADHD who did not explain events in terms of medication status (Treuting & Hinshaw, 2001). Finally, one study found that college students self-reporting childhood ADHD had similar explanatory styles compared to college students not reporting childhood ADHD (Presnell, 1999). A notable limitation of the Presnell study is that it identified college students with ADHD through self- reports of childhood diagnoses. The current study avoids the problems associated with self-reporting because it groups participants according to current, documented diagnoses. Although the research is thin, two themes emerge: (a) Individuals with ADHD have different explanatory styles than students without disabilities, and (b) explanatory style is related to some measures of men- tal health for individuals with ADHD. LD and Explanatory Style In general, discussions of LD, learned helplessness, as formulated by Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale (1978), is used as an explanation of the passivity that can char- acterize students with LD (Lerner, 1997, p. 283). When some or many students with LDs fail frequently in acad- emic settings, they come to believe that their failures are inevitable, and then they stop trying. Conclusions from research on attributional style have been more consistent in populations with LD than in populations with ADHD. First, children with LDs have more negative explanatory styles than their peers without disabilities; they often attribute failure to lack of ability, an internal, uncontrol- lable, stable, and sometimes global cause in contrast with their peers without disabilities who more often attribute failure to lack of effort, an internal, controllable, unstable, and specific cause (Butkowsky & Willows, 1980; Jacobsen, Lowery, & DuCette, 1986). This pattern is also found in the social realm where children with LD made more negative self-attributions after a bad social experience and more positive self-attributions after a good social experience than their peers without disabili- ties (Settle & Milich, 1999). Second, there is some evi- dence that attribution style is correlated with performance for individuals with LD. For example, Licht and Kistner (1986) found that explanations for negative academic events were one of the best predictors of how children would fare when faced with another negative event. This study expands on existing research by determining if the same correlation found between explanatory style and performance for children with LD is also found for college students with LD. Co-Occurring ADHD and LD and Explanatory Style Although there is little research that looks specifically at the explanatory styles of individuals with co-occurring attention disorder and LD diagnoses, studies that do include participants with co-occurring diagnoses have found correlations between explanatory style and some measures of mental health and performance. Elementary school students with ADHD and ADHD/LD had signifi- cantly more pessimistic explanatory styles than typically developing students, and having a positive explanatory style was related to positive self-concept and self-efficacy beliefs (Tabassam & Grainger, 2002). C. F. Tominey (1996) reported that college students with LD and/or ADHD who had positive explanatory styles had signifi- cantly higher GPAs than those with negative explanatory styles. Tominey's work included individuals with single and multiple diagnoses without creating a separate co- occurring diagnoses group, so it is difficult to draw con- clusions about the role of explanatory style for college students with co-occurring diagnoses. The present study focuses on college students, and it has the added refine- ment of separating LD, ADHD, and co-occurring diag- noses groups to look at the relationship between explanatory style and GPA. Explanatory Style and College Students Weiner's (1985) theory of achievement motivation holds that achievement is greatest when one has an opti- mistic explanatory style, meaning that one makes inter- nal, global, stable, and controllable attributions for academic success and external, unstable, specific, and controllable attributions for academic failure. Research in postsecondary populations has supported Weiner's formulation. Explanatory style was modestly correlated with first-year college GPA (Peterson & Barrett, 1987); with a rise in coping techniques and increased study time after an experience of failure in college (Peterson, 300 Journal of Attention Disorders Colvin, & Lin, 1992); with GPA of sophomores, juniors, and seniors (Schulman, 1995); and with GPA of college students with and without physical disabilities (Martinez & Sewell, 2000). Attribution Retraining and Achievement Attribution retraining is a process by which individu- als learn a more optimistic explanatory style, and pre- liminary investigations have shown that such treatments increase achievement. Attribution retraining positively affected course grade, perceived control, perceived suc- cess, and academic emotions, but not cumulative GPA, for a group of college students (Hall, Hladkyj, Perry, & Ruthig, 2004), and attribution retraining improved sub- sequent performance on word tasks for postgraduate Indian women identified as having low self-esteem (Sharma & Mavi, 2001). The available evidence suggests that explanatory style does relate to achievement, and this study attempts to identify whether explanatory style is a correlate with college success for students with ADHD, LD, and co-occurring diagnoses. Purposes The purposes of the present study were to compare the explanatory styles of participants with ADHD, LD, and co-occurring ADHD/LD and to ascertain whether explana- tory style predicted GPA for any of these groups. We also examined whether explanatory style predicted GPA for the entire participant group. ADHD is a disorder of self-regulation that can impair thinking, including planning and reflection, at the point of performance (Barkley, 1997, p. 337). Because ADHD is characterized by a disconnect between thought and action, we hypothesized that neither group comprised participants with ADHD would show a relationship between their tendencies in causal thinking (explanatory style) and GPA. LD is "a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written" (Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, 2004). We hypothesized that the subgroup with diag- noses of LD would show only a relationship between explanatory style and grades. Method Participants The participants in this study were 42 students enrolled in introductory social science courses in a 2-year college serving students with LD and ADHD. As part of their admission to the college, all students are required to sub- mit a detailed psychoeducational report no less than 3 years old and that documents the students' LD. The reports are written by a range of professionals, including psychoeducational testers, psychiatrists, and psycholo- gists, and consequently, they do vary in diagnostic stan- dards and reporting language. Participants were put in the ADHD group if their sole diagnosis was ADHD combined type, inattentive type, or hyperactive-impulsive type, as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text revision; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Participants were put in the LD group if their sole diagnosis was dyslexia or a DSM-IV-TR disorder such as reading disorder, disorder of written expression, and expressive language disorder. The co-occurring group included those individuals meeting both the above standards. Potential participants were excluded from the study if they had a documented diagnosis of depression or bipo- lar disorder, as both correlate significantly with a pes- simistic explanatory style. Completed questionnaires were sorted into three subgroups based on documented diagnoses. The final subgroups included 16 students with ADHD, 12 with language-based LD, and 14 with co-occurring ADHD and LD. Instrument The study used the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson et al., 1982). This self-report instru- ment measures a respondent's explanatory style along three continua: internal-external, stable-unstable, and global-specific. On this questionnaire, participants generate a cause for six hypothetical positive events and six hypothetical negative events and then rate the cause on a 1 to 7 scale for three causal dimensions. The scores used in this study are as follows: composite neg- ative (CN), for which 3 is the best score and 21 is the worst score; composite positive (CP), for which 21 is the best score and 3 is the worst score; and the CP minus the CN (CPCN), for which 18 is the best score and 18 is the worst score. Research has shown that these composite scores predict helplessness deficits (Peterson & Seligman, 1984, p. 162), and they corre- late with academic success as measured by GPA (Schulman et al., 1995). The ASQ has criterion valid- ity for predicting academic success (Reivich, 1995, p. 30), and it was selected because of the abundance of reliability and validity evidence supporting it (Tennen & Hersberger, 1986). Shmulsky, Gobbo / Explanatory Style and ADHD, LD 301 Procedure We collected explanatory style data from students enrolled in required introductory social science courses during the fourth week of the semester. None of the classes contained curriculum related to the theories in this study before the ASQ was administered. A tester came into each class on a regular class meeting day and gave the students a brief overview of the study. Those who wished to participate completed consent forms and after receiving basic instructions, completed the ques- tionnaires. All usable ASQ questionnaire responses were completed within 15 min to 1 hr and 15 min. The tester collected questionnaires as soon as they were complete. Responses were number coded to protect confidentiality, and CPCN, CN, and CP scores were computed for each participant. The GPA for each participant was compared to CPCN, CN, and CP scores to see if relationships could be found. GPAs were computed on a 4-point scale approximately 8 weeks after the ASQ data were col- lected. The GPA calculation was based on grades from all the credit-bearing courses each participant was enrolled in at the time of the study. Results Means and standard deviations for CPCN, CN, CP, and GPA for each subgroup and all three groups com- bined are presented in Table 1. No significant differences were found among the subgroups for any of the compos- ite ASQ scores or for GPA. ASQ composite scores and GPAs for each of the sub- groups and for all three groups combined were analyzed for linear correlation. Table 2 shows the moderate corre- lations found between CPCN scores and GPAs for one of the three participant subgroups and for the entire sample. The subgroup with co-occurring LD/ADHD showed a significant correlation of .55, indicating a relationship between causal thinking and achievement measured by grades earned. The three subgroups combined showed a significant correlation of .33. Because of the wide range of correlation coefficients among the groups, we calcu- lated a partial correlation between CPCN scores and GPA, holding diagnostic categories constant. When diag- nostic categories are held constant using this method, the resulting coefficient is .308, a significant correlation at the .05 level. No significant relationships were found between CPCN and GPA for the LD subgroup or the ADHD subgroup. Discussion Explanatory style or attribution style is of interest to educators, managers, health care professionals, coun- selors, and others who work directly with people because it is an easily understood, recognized, and measurable variable that predicts success and failure in important human pursuits, such as academics, personal health, and work (Buchanan & Seligman, 1995). Earlier studies show that explanatory style is a potentially useful con- cept to those in higher education because it predicts 302 Journal of Attention Disorders Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations of ASQ Scores and Grade Point Averages and Standard Deviations by Group LD/ADHD ASQ (n = 12) LD (n = 16) ADHD (n = 14) Combined (n = 42) M SD M SD M SD M SD CPCN 3.36 3.10 1.94 1.95 2.26 2.71 2.45 2.50 CN 12.18 3.01 13.09 2.66 13.49 2.11 12.96 2.57 CP 15.54 2.46 15.03 2.22 15.75 2.36 15.42 2.30 GPA 2.69 1.06 2.56 0.83 2.63 0.93 2.62 0.91 Note: ASQ = Attribution Style Questionnaire; LD = learning disabilities; CPCN = CP minus the CN; CN = composite negative; CP = compos- ite positive; GPA = grade point average. Table 2 Correlation Between ASQ CPCN Scores and GPAs by Group Partial Correlation Group Diagnosis LD ADHD LD/ADHD Combined held constant rho .30 .07 .55* .33* .308* Note: ASQ = Attribution Style Questionnaire; CPCN = composite positive minus the composite negative; LD = learning disabilities. *p < .05. college grades (Martinez & Sewell, 2000; Peterson & Barrett, 1987; Schulman, 1995). In keeping with other research on explanatory style and grades, the present study found a significant correlation between explana- tory style and one semester GPA for college students with professionally diagnosed learning problems. The study also found a significant correlation between explanatory style and GPA for the co-occurringADHD/LD subgroup. The overall finding of a predictive relationship between causal thinking pattern and grades for the wide, heterogeneous group of college students with diagnosed LD, ADHD, or a combination of both must be inter- preted cautiously because it is at odds with some of the subgroup findings. The LD subgoup's correlation coeffi- cient was just below the critical value for significance. In this case, it is likely that the small size of the LD sub- group made a correlation undetectable, but further research is needed to verify this hypothesis. The larger discrepancy, which warrants further inquiry, was between the ADHD subgroup and the overall group results. The ADHD subgroup had a near zero correlation coefficient, indicating little or no relationship between explanatory style and grades, and this contrasted boldly with results for the overall group. The correlation between explanatory style and GPA for the ADHD/LD subgroup was unexpected given our hypothesis that the presence of ADHD would prevent such a relationship from occurring. These findings can be important from a practical point of view because they identify an easy-to-measure variable that predicts college success for students with ADHD/LD, a subset of students likely to experience difficulty at some time in their college career. Knowing that optimistic and pes- simistic thinking can predict performance, counselors, deans, and faculty can better identify at-risk students and allocate time and resources where they are most needed. Researchers can continue to investigate whether there is a causal relationship between explanatory style and achievement and, if there is, develop therapies and cog- nitive interventions, such as attributional retraining, which aim to alter explanatory style. The result that explanatory style predicts GPA for the ADHD/LD subgroup but not for the ADHD subgroup may have been due to the idiosyncrasies of a small sample rather than true between-group differences. Alternatively, the ADHD/LD and ADHD subgroups may have differed in severity of attentional problems, age of first diagnosis, length of time participating in special education, partici- pation in cognitive-based psychotherapy, or another vari- able that the current study did not investigate but is relevant to the research questions. For example, those with co-occurring ADHD/LD may have a history of scrutiny by special education professionals during the school years, and they may be diagnosed with ADHD at a lower threshold of symptoms than others are. If this is the case, those with co-occurring ADHD in our sample may have had less pronounced ADHD symptoms than those with ADHD only. This scenario is just hypotheti- cal, but it points to the potential for intergroup differ- ences in a sample of individuals with complex learning profiles. More clarity on the exact mechanism by which explanatory style is related to achievement would fur- ther our understanding of the dynamic relationship between these variables for the individual with ADHD. Those with positive explanatory styles may do better in their classes because their self-talk during tasks guides them and keeps them on track when challenges arise; they may think, "I can do this; this problem will be fixed if I keep trying." If this were the primary mechanism, however, one would not expect to find a relationship between explanatory style and grades for those with ADHD as a defining characteristic of ADHD is difficult using planful and reflective thinking to guide behavior (Barkley, 1997). Alternatively, the emotional or experience-based con- comitants of explanatory style may be critical in relation to achievement. Optimistic thinkers may have more energy to expend on tasks because they experience life as more enjoyable and less burdensome than their pes- simistic counterparts do. Finally, individuals with posi- tive explanatory styles may simply have more skills and successes to draw from than those with relatively nega- tive explanatory styles have; in other words, there may be some objective truth in the sunnier outlook of the opti- mist and the gloomier view of the pessimist. In these cases, there is no reason to hypothesize that the presence of ADHD would directly interrupt the relationship between explanatory style and achievement. Attributional retraining studies have shown that inter- ventions to change the type of causal attributions college students make after negative events have improved acad- emic performance (Hall et al., 2004; Sharma & Mavi, 2001), and these studies provide preliminary evidence that causal thinking patterns can be changed, at least for the short term, and that they do affect academic perfor- mance for some. Our study suggests that future work on the effectiveness of attributional retraining for college students with diagnosed learning difficulties may be fruitful. As long as equal access to education is a cultural value and as long as colleges are in the business of educating increasingly diverse clienteles, we need to understand Shmulsky, Gobbo / Explanatory Style and ADHD, LD 303 how learners with different strengths and weaknesses can succeed. Students with LD and attention disorders are at higher risk of failing in college than students with- out disabilities, so it is especially important to identify factors that can predict their success or failure. Higher education professionals, including administrators, fac- ulty, counselors, and academic support center staff, can use the finding of a relationship between optimism, pes- simism, and grades in their work with students, includ- ing those with learning differences. References Abramson, L., Seligman, M. E. P., & Teasdale, J. D. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref2">1</reflink>), 49-74. American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author. Barkley, R. A. (1997). ADHD and the nature of self-control. NewYork: Guilford. Buchanan, G. M., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1995). Explanatory style. 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Strothman (Eds.), Understanding learning disabilities at the postsecondary level: A landmark college guide (pp. 63-76). Putney, VT: Landmark College. Tabassam, W., & Grainger, J. (2002). Self-concept, attributional style, and self-efficacy beliefs of students with learning disabilities with and without AD/HD. Learning Disability Quarterly, 25(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref14">2</reflink>), 141- 152. Retrieved October 15, 2003, from Infotrac database. Tennen, H., & Hersberger, S. (1986). Attributional Style Questionnaire. In D. J. Keyser & R. C. Sweetland (Eds.), Test critiques (Vol. 4, pp. 20-30). Kansas City, KS: Test Corporation of America. Tominey, M. F. (1996, February). Attribution style as a predictor of academic success for students with learning disabilities and/or attention deficit disorder in postsecondary education. Paper pre- sented at the International Conference of the Learning Disabilities Association, Chicago. Treuting, J. J., & Hinshaw, S. P. (2001). Depression and self-esteem in boys with AD/HD: Associations with comorbid aggression and explanatory attributional mechanisms. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 29(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref15">1</reflink>), 1-25. Vogel, S., Hruby, P. J., & Adelman, P. B. (1993). Educational and psychological factors in successful and unsuccessful college students with learning disabilities. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 304 Journal of Attention Disorders Vogel, S. (2002, September). Success for students with LD in higher edu- cation. Presentation given at Landmark College, Putney, Vermont. Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92, 543-573. Solvegi Shmulsky earned an MEd in human development from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Currently, she is an associate professor of psychology at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont. Her research interests include the cognitive and motivational patterns of college students with learning differences. Ken Gobbo earned an MS in counseling at the State University of New York at Oneonta. Currently, he is an asso- ciate professor of psychology at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont. His research interests include dyslexia and creativ- ity and college student development for individuals with learning differences. Shmulsky, Gobbo / Explanatory Style and ADHD, LD 305</p> <aug> <p>By Solvegi Shmulsky and Ken Gobbo</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib3" firstref="ref1"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl2" bibid="bib1" firstref="ref2"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl3" bibid="bib5" firstref="ref3"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl4" bibid="bib6" firstref="ref4"></nolink> <nolink nlid="nl5" bibid="bib2" firstref="ref14"></nolink>
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  Data: Explanatory Style and College Students with ADHD and LD
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Shmulsky%2C+Solvegi%22">Shmulsky, Solvegi</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Gobbo%2C+Ken%22">Gobbo, Ken</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Journal+of+Attention+Disorders%22"><i>Journal of Attention Disorders</i></searchLink>. 2007 10(3):299-305.
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  Data: SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
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  Data: 7
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  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Students%22">College Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+Point+Average%22">Grade Point Average</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Learning+Disabilities%22">Learning Disabilities</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Attention+Deficit+Disorders%22">Attention Deficit Disorders</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+Impairments%22">Language Impairments</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Hyperactivity%22">Hyperactivity</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Attribution+Theory%22">Attribution Theory</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Correlation%22">Correlation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Scores%22">Scores</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Academic+Achievement%22">Academic Achievement</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SU" term="%22Attribution+Style+Questionnaire%22">Attribution Style Questionnaire</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1177/1087054706292103
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  Data: 1087-0547
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
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  Data: Objective: This study uses the Attribution Style Questionnaire (ASQ) to measure the causal thinking of 42 college students with diagnosed language-based learning disabilities (LD), ADHD, or co-occurring ADHD and LD. Attribution style, or explanatory style, is a term used to describe the tendencies of individuals to think that the causes of meaningful events are internal or external, global or specific, and stable or unstable. Method: No significant differences in explanatory styles are found among the three subgroups. The study also investigates whether there is a relationship between explanatory style and grades. Results: Significant positive correlations are found between ASQ scores and grade point averages for the subgroup with co-occurring ADHD and LD and for the three subgroups combined. Conclusion: These findings are significant because they continue to clarify factors related to the postsecondary success of students with LD and attention deficit disorders. (Contains 2 tables.)
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  Data: 2008
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  Data: EJ804386
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