Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Locus of control; Motivation in education; Self-perception in children;
Abstract
Many researchers agree that a student's level of self-esteem is important to success and self-esteem (Chapman & Boersma, 1980). If a student's level of self-esteem can be raised, this improvement may lead to improvement in other areas such as academic achievement (Shavelson & Bolus, 1982). In addition, teaching students to attribute success to themselves should improve self-esteem (Gurney, 1987). Consequently, teaching an internal locus of control to students could be a concern for the local school district (Stipek & Weisz, 1981). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship which exists between the constructs of locus of control and self-concept as a learner. A secondary purpose of this study was to determine if there was a gender difference in how students responded to the two constructs. The constructs were studied by administering a measure of locus of control and self-concept as a learner to twelfth graders in two rural Iowa school districts. Both scores yielded raw scores, which were transformed to normalized scores. In order to look at the relationship between scores obtained on both scales, correlation coefficients using the Pearson Product-moment Correlation Coefficient, Raw Score Formula were computed on the normalized scores. The results indicate a low correlation for total group (r = -.344), female (r = -.368), and males (r = -.340). The correlation coefficients were significantly different from zero-order correlations for males, females, and total group. However the difference between the correlations for males and females was not statistically significant. An analysis of the difference between the total group correlation for this study and the total group correlation for Randall's (1989) study was conducted. The difference between the two correlations was significant, z with p ≤.0118, with Randall's correlation being stronger (-.49). Thus, there appears to be an urban/rural difference which needs further exploration.
Year of Submission
1990
Degree Name
Specialist in Education
Department
Department of Educational Psychology, Foundations, and Leadership Studies
Department
Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations
First Advisor
Donald W. Schmits
Date Original
1990
Object Description
1 PDF file (86 pages)
Copyright
©1990 Noel N. Schmidt
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Schmidt, Noel N., "The Relationship Between the Constructs of Locus of Control and Learner Self-Concept" (1990). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 1619.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/1619
Comments
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