#Motivation Attribution Theory 

    This theory examines that people try to understand the behavior of others by attributing feelings, beliefs, and intentions to them. Frits Helder is considered as the father of attribution theory. it emphasis on how individuals attribute his/her failure or success. It can be best seen in the works of Harold Kelly and Bernard Weiner. According to Weiner, this theory assumes that how people attempt to understand the causal determents of people’s past success and failure. 

        Dornyie (2003) identified that our past experiences especially how we attribute those experiences can influence current and future achievements. It is related to our past success or failure and how much our past influences present and future behavior. Its aim is to identify that how and why certain attributes are made by learners in the process of l2 learning, as it is been observed that human mind always investigates that how and why certain outcome comes.  For example, if a student is supposed to get good marks in mathematics but he got a low score in it. so, he would find out the reason of getting low marks either it is lack of ability or effort. Being a human we all have faced success and failure, but the most important thing is how we attribute our experiences, either in a positive way or negative way because our past attribution has a major influence on our future outcomes. 

        According to Graham and Weiner (1996), casual determents investigate the reasons for success and failure.  When the unexpected and important result comes out, then this search gets activated. Weiner 1986 has given three dimensions of causality, locus, stability, and controllability.

1.        Locus: It is the first determent of attribution theory which refers to the location of cause either failure is caused by internal factors or it is caused by external factors.  For example, internal reason increases the self-worth in the result of success while it will decrease the level of self-esteem is the result of failure like learner get low marks because of his/her competence or ability are internal factors but getting low due to task difficulty is external.

2.            

          Stability:It refers to the cause of attribution due to time. For example, when a learner ascribes a positive result to a cause, he/she is expected to have success but when a leaner ascribes a negative result to cause he/ will surely face failure.

3.         

            Controllability: It refers to how much the cause is controllable or not.

            The basic purpose of this theory is to get knowledge about the causal determents that are made by individuals to attributes their success or failure. According to Kelly one of the important theorist of attribution theory stated that human has the cognitive capability to identify the reason for casual attributes either failure is caused by internal factors or it is due to external factors. In this case Graham (1994) given common attributes made in a school setting including ability, effort, task difficulty, luck, mood, family background. 

        

        Most of the important are two ability and effort which plays a very important role in shaping future achievements. For example, a learner faced failure and she/he attributed that failure as lack of ability like “I failed because I am stupid” indicates that failure is caused due to uncontrollable and stable factor like low ability and it is more dangerous for future achievement than the failure. On the other hand, if a learner says “ I fail because I hadn’t prepared enough for the test”, indicates that cause of his/her failure is an effort which is an unstable and controllable factor like it is in our hand  that how much we put effort into that task. It is something controllable. Attributing a lack of ability as a cause of failure is more dangerous than the lack of effort, as lack of ability may generate the feeling of shame and embarrassment, contradictory attributing lack of effort may generate the feelings of guilt.  Graham 1994 investigates the class motivation with the lens of attribution theory. 

            For example, a student is always gets F grade in mathematics throughout the whole semester both teacher and a student asked themselves about the reason of a student’s failure, they came to know that it is due to lack of ability because all the other students are doing it easily. Attribution theory intended the l2 teacher to investigated that why a student always makes these attributes whenever he/she is given a task like “I cannot do it” what are reasons ether they are internal or external. It is the task of the teacher to detect the real cause of attributing this casual determent. 

            Oxford and Shearin (1992) say that great satisfaction occurs when we attribute success as self and internal factor rather than attributed as external. For example, I got success due to my ability and effort that I put into the task rather than due to luck, fate, or easy task. When people themselves rather than the external factors. Attributional theory helps l2 teacher to understand why l2 learners make such kind of attributes “I cannot do it, I am stupid”, it provides them to investigate the reasons behind such negative attributes.