Attribution and self-efficacy and their interrelationship in the Korean EFL context

This study examined the interrelationships between learners' attributions and self-efficacy and their achievements in learning English as a foreign language. Participants were 192 ninth-grade English learners in Korea who were asked to provide attribution and self-efficacy ratings upon receiving test grades. Results indicated that learners with different levels of self-efficacy ratings endorsed attributions differently for successful and unsuccessful outcomes. Learners with higher levels of self-efficacy attributed their test results to more internal and personal control factors than those who reported lower self-efficacy levels. For learners who were unsuccessful, those with higher self-efficacy made stronger personal control attributions than learners with lower self-efficacy.