ATTRIBUTION RETRAINING. This strategy involves bringing about changes in students' tendencies to attribute failure to lack of ability rather than to a remediable cause, such as insufficient effort or use of an inappropriate strategy. Typically, attribution retraining involves exposing students to a planned series of experiences, couched within an achievement context, in which modeling, socialization, practice, and feedback are used to teach them to (1) concentrate on the task at hand rather than worry about failing, (2) cope with failures by retracing their steps to find their mistake or by analyzing the problem to find another approach, and (3) attribute their failures to insufficient effort, lack of information, or use of ineffective strategies rather than to lack of ability.
EFFICACY TRAINING. These programs also involve exposing students to a planned set of experiences within an achievement context and providing them with modeling, instruction, and feedback. However, while attribution retraining programs were developed specifically for learned helplessness students and thus focus on teaching constructive response to failure, efficacy training programs were developed primarily for low achievers who have become accustomed to failure and have developed generalized low self-concepts of ability. Consequently, efficacy training helps students set realistic goals and pursue them with the recognition that they have the ability needed to reach those goals if they apply reasonable effort.
STRATEGY TRAINING. In this approach, modeling and instruction are used to teach problem-solving strategies and related self-talk that students need to handle tasks successfully. Strategy training is a component of good cognitive skills instruction to all students; it is not primarily a remedial technique. However, it is especially important for use with frustrated students who have not developed effective learning and problem-solving strategies on their own, but who can learn them through modeling and explicit instruction. (Brophy, 1998)