Locus of Control
Locus of control
Roberto G. Edillo Jr.
University of San Carlos
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for Psychology 115
Ms. Ruby Ilustrisimo
March 24, 2011
Abstract
300 participants who are students from the University of San Carlos are asked to answer a 60-item questionnaire each. 159 of them are males and 141 are females. The purpose of the survey is to test the reliability of the newly developed tool for measuring the degree of locus of control among individuals. This is in lieu to the Locus of control scale of Rotter (1966). The data collection is done through snowball and convenience sampling. The data is encoded in SPSS, and the test got a .699 standardized Cronbach’s alpha on the 60-item questionnaire, and .876 standardized cronbach’s alpha when 30 questions were weeded out. The implication is that the tool is reliable in measuring the degree of locus of control.
Introduction
People vary in the way they attribute events, circumstances and certain happenings. It is somewhat puzzling to know why people differ in the way they view certain causes of events. Could this be something that is influenced by their different personalities? Some people may attribute a certain happening to their lives as consequences of their actions, but there are also some people who point towards external factors or situations to be the primary cause of the occurrence of certain events. The way people perceive or blame causes of certain happenings is called Attribution. In social psychology, attribution is referred as the way people perceive and interpret the causes of events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior. Attributions could range from dispositional to something which is uncontrollable and external. However, this paper does not intend to focus on attribution but on certain factors that influence attribution which is called Locus of Control. Locus or Loci of control according to Rotter (1966) refers to the
Roberto G. Edillo Jr.
University of San Carlos
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for Psychology 115
Ms. Ruby Ilustrisimo
March 24, 2011
Abstract
300 participants who are students from the University of San Carlos are asked to answer a 60-item questionnaire each. 159 of them are males and 141 are females. The purpose of the survey is to test the reliability of the newly developed tool for measuring the degree of locus of control among individuals. This is in lieu to the Locus of control scale of Rotter (1966). The data collection is done through snowball and convenience sampling. The data is encoded in SPSS, and the test got a .699 standardized Cronbach’s alpha on the 60-item questionnaire, and .876 standardized cronbach’s alpha when 30 questions were weeded out. The implication is that the tool is reliable in measuring the degree of locus of control.
Introduction
People vary in the way they attribute events, circumstances and certain happenings. It is somewhat puzzling to know why people differ in the way they view certain causes of events. Could this be something that is influenced by their different personalities? Some people may attribute a certain happening to their lives as consequences of their actions, but there are also some people who point towards external factors or situations to be the primary cause of the occurrence of certain events. The way people perceive or blame causes of certain happenings is called Attribution. In social psychology, attribution is referred as the way people perceive and interpret the causes of events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior. Attributions could range from dispositional to something which is uncontrollable and external. However, this paper does not intend to focus on attribution but on certain factors that influence attribution which is called Locus of Control. Locus or Loci of control according to Rotter (1966) refers to the