<![CDATA[Purpose: This study investigates the efficacy of a contingent feedback intervention in mitigating learned helplessness and elevating internal academic locus of control among students experiencing cognitive decoupling between effort exertion and academic evaluation outcomes. Method: A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design was employed. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was executed to control for pre-test covariates, evaluating shifts in learned helplessness and academic locus of control using validated psychometric instruments. Findings: ANCOVA results confirmed a statistically significant intervention effect, accounting for 52.3% of the variance in learned helplessness reduction and 54.8% of the variance in internal academic locus of control increase. Process-oriented descriptive feedback successfully restored cognitive agency by shifting attributional structures from external factors to internal, controllable variables. Practical implications: Educators can deploy structured contingent feedback to attenuate evaluative anxiety, optimize working memory capacity allocation, and re-engage students exhibiting academic passivity, learned helplessness, and burnout. Originality/value: This research offers robust empirical evidence for cognitive agency reconstruction, demonstrating that attributional deficits can be systematically reversed by establishing real-time effort-outcome contingency cues rather than relying on traditional quantitative scoring.]]>
