Attribution Patterns in Medical Students in Academic Setting: Quantitative Insight using MMCS Scale

Abstract: Background: Academic performance is not solely dependent on a student’s intelligence but also influenced by psychological factors, like how students perceive their success or failure. So, it’s very important to evaluate students’ attributional pattern in relation to other factors in order to help them in attributional retraining. Attribution has three main domains of Locus of control, stability and controllability. So, this study aims to examine the attributional patterns and identify the dominant attribution dimensions used by medical students. Materials and Methods: An Analytical cross sectional study was conducted at Fazaia Medical College Islamabad for 2 months after IRB approval and informed consent using Multidimensional Multiattribution Causality Scale (MMCS). Data was collected from 112 students of First and second year MBBS using convenience sampling. After excluding seven participants with multiple missing values, data was analyzed using SPSS 25. Descriptive statistics, Reliability, independent t test and Pearson’s correlation were used for data exploration and analysis. Result: MMCS demonstrated Cronbach-alpha of 0.89. Mean scores across items show high validation of controllable (M=2.89) and internal (M=2.79) factors. Success attribution (t=10.36) is significantly more than failure attribution (t=6.01) in academic settings. There is strong significant positive correlations among Internal attribution, controllability, instability and success (r=0.811, p < .01). External attribution demonstrate weaker correlations with internal attribution (r = .161, p > .01). Conclusion: Medical students’ attributional pattern indicates more success attribution than failure. There is a strong attribution to relate success to internal, controllable and unstable factors which overall depicts a growth mindset. Keywords: Attribution, Attributional retraining, Attributional patterns, Locus of control, Medical students, Mental Health.