| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship
of selected school and family factors to internalexternal
locus of control in children enrolled in a public
school kindergarten.
The 43 children in the study included 18 boys and
25 gir1s~ 31 children were white and 12 were black. The
52 parents of the children who participated in this study
inc~uded 38 mothers, 12 fathers, and 2 grandmothers.
Locus of control was defined as the degree to which a
person believes that he possesses or lacks the power to
control the occurrence of reinforcing events in his life.
vihile persons with internal control (internals) tend to perceive
events as a consequence of their actions, those persons
.with external control (externals) tend to believe that reinforcing
events are beyond personal control (Rotter, 1.954).
Locus of control was measured by the Preschool and Primary
Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale (Nowicki
& Duke, 1974).
Instruments used to measure variables associated with
IE included: the Bender-Gestalt Test for Young Children
(Bender, 1946) as an evaluatlon of visual motor function,
the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn, 1959) as a measure
of verbal intelligence, a modified sociogram as a description
of the child's relationship with his peers, the adapted
Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale (1969) as a measure of selfconcept,
a questionnaire to determine social characteristics
of the family, and the Parent Attitude Survey (Shoben, 1949) \
as a measure of parent attitudes.
The data were analyzed using multiple regression techniques8
The findings for these children supported hypothesized
relationships between locus of control and Bender-
Gestalt scores, intelligence scores, and self-concept scores
as well as the following personal and family characteristics:
ordinal position of the child, number of siblings, gender of
the'child, and marital status of the parents. No relationship
was found between IE and race, a child's relationship with
his peers, or Parent Attitude Suryey scores. The relationship
of IE to socio-economic class and rel~gion could not be
determined because of the homogeneity of the group. MultipIe
regression analysis indicated that the Bender-Gestalt
and self-concept scores were the best predictors of internalexternal
locus of control.
The significant relationship reported in this study
between IE and self-concept, ordinal position, number of
siblings, gender, and intelligence scores confirmed earlier
research reports. However, the direction of the relationship
between IE and two other variables was unexpected. Internality
was related to low rather than high Bender-Gestalt scores
and to one-parent rather than two-parent families. | en_US |
