Sequential attributional feedback and children's achievement behaviors.

Two experiments investigated how the sequence of attributional feedback influences children's motivation, attributions, self-efficacy, and skillful performance. Children lacking subtraction skills received training and solved problems over four sessions. During the problem solving, one group of children (ability-ability) periodically received ability feedback, a second group (effort-effort) received effort feedback, a third group (ability-effort) was given ability feedback during the first two sessions and effort feedback during the last two, and for a fourth group this sequence was reversed (effort-ability). . In both studies, children who initially received ability feedback (ability-ability and ability-effort conditions) developed higher ability attributions, self-efficacy, and subtraction skills compared with subjects in the effort-ability and effort-effort conditions. The sequence of attributional feedback did not differentially affect motivation, effort attributions, or perceptions of training successes.