Understanding school refusal behavior in adolescence: Risk profiles and attributional style for academic results

Abstract

Adolescents who show a tendency to refuse school could also be experiencing poor motivation towards learning. The present work aimed to identify profiles of adolescents with school refusal behavior (SRB) and to examine whether these possible groups differed in academic self-attributions. Participants were 1183 Spanish students (53.7% girls) from 14 to 17 years old (M = 15.58, SD = 1.08). They answered to the Spanish versions of the School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised (SRAS-R) and the Sydney Attribution Scale (SAS). Four SRB profiles were found by the Latent Profile Analysis technique: non-SRB, moderately high SRB, anxious SRB, and high SRB. Statistically significant differences were identified among the four groups in all the academic self-attributions examined. The anxious and high SRB profiles showed a greater tendency to attribute their academic failures to ability, while they tended to attribute their successes less to internal causes. Intervention strategies are suggested to attend these risk SRB profiles.