S ummary . The effectiveness of two brief remedial programmes on freshmen's academic performance was investigated. In the first study, a programme was developed to increase students' motivation for their study by using attribution change techniques. Participants (N=43) watched video‐taped interviews with senior students relating the causes of their failures at the beginning of the first year, and how they had managed to improve their exam scores at the end of the year. The results showed that this attribution video manipulation significantly increased the number of students (18 per cent) who passed the final examinations at the end of the first year relative to control students who did not participate. In a second study, this attributional intervention was contrasted with another programme designed to enhance students' ability to remedy their learning difficulties by teaching appropriate study strategies. Participants (N=57) in this programme learned conventional rules of study strategy use, and applied these during short practice trials on existing course material. The attribution change programme again produced a significant increase (20 per cent) in the number of students who passed the final exams. In contrast, the learning strategy course had no effect on academic performance.
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Overwalle et al. (1990) studied this question.