Psychological Reports, 1975, 37, 523-538. @ Psychological Reports 1975
DIMENSIONS OF LOCUS OF CONTROL IN CHILDREN1 NORMAN A. MILGRAM A N D ROBERTA M. MILGRAM
TeGAviv University Summary.-A multidimensional measure of locus of control, which included three dimensions of content, time, and orientation toward success-failure outcomes, was administered to non-gifted ( N = 298) and gifted (N = 166) Israeli children in Grades 4 through 8. Content was measured in three important settings in the child's life: school, home, and neighborhood. The time dimension referred to the difference becween assuming responsibility for events of the present and past versus the expression of competence to affect future outcomes. Internal consistency and reliabilities of the new instrument were adequate, especially for the Future Scale, and the three dimensions were empirically distinguishable. Relationships were found becween locus of control and age, scholastic achievement, and personalicy variables.
Considerable research has been conducted in the past decade on the construct of locus of control. Recent reviews (Lefcourt, 1966; Joe, 1971) and bibliographies (Throop & MacDonald, 1971) cite hundreds of studies on the implications of this concept for cognitive, motivational, and personal-social performance. A major methodological criticism has been raised, however, about the scales used to measure this construct in children and adults. Notwithstanding Rotter's assertion that his Internal-External Scale (I-E) is heavily loaded on a single general factor (1966), considerable evidence suggests that this scale is, in fact, multidimensional. Joe (1971) concluded his extensive review of the literature by recommending the use of specific measures rather than one generalized measure. Mirels ( 1970) extracted two factors from the I-E scale, personal mastery and mastery over political-social institutions. Viney (1974) and Gootnick ( 1974) replicated this finding, confirming both the multidimensionality of the scale and the efficacy of using specific clusters or factors within the I-E scale rather than the total score. In a comparative study of university students from eight different countries Parsons and Schneider ( 1974 ) reported low intercorrelations of five subscales of the I-E scale. With respect to locus of control scales for children, Bialer (1961) and Miller (1960) claimed adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability for their respective scales with children as young as second graders. Cromwell, Rosenthal, Shakow, and Zaber (1961) suggested that the Bialer scale could be -used with subjects whose MA levels are as low as four years, if the questions are 'This research was supported in pan by the Israel Ministry of Education and Culture, the Deparunent for Gifted Children. W e are grateful to Dr. Erika Landau, Director of Haaretz Museum enrichment program for her cooperation, to Mrs. Shlomit Neeman for her valuable assistance, and to X r . Yehudah Asformas for his wise counsel in the analysis of the data. Reprints may be obtained from Professor Norman A. Milgram, Deparunent of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Israel.
5 24
N. A. MILGRAM & R. M. MILGRAM
read aloud. On the other hand Gorsuch, Henighan, and Barnard (1972) concluded from a review of the research literature as well as from their own work that these children's scales lack adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. They cited data which indicate that children in Grades 4 and 5, of low average verbal ability, fail to understand the items even when they are read aloud to them. These children respond randomly and earn thereby a lower internal score than children who are either chronologically older or intellectually brighter. One children's scale which has achieved adequate internal consistency is the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire developed by Crandall, Katkovsky, and Crandall ( 1965). This scale is unidimensional in that all items deal with school situations. Scores on the scale consistently yielded significant relationships with academic criterion measures (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Preston, 1962; McGhee & Crandall, 1968). The authors of the scale attempted further to enhance its unidimensionality by distinguishing between assumption of responsibility for successful outcomes (the positive subscale) as compared with failure outcomes (the negative subscale). McGhee and Crandall ( 1968) reported that the negative subscale was a better predictor of academic achievement for boys, while the subscales were equally valid predictors for girls. In a study with moderately mentally retarded adolescents and young adults, Milgram (1972) noted that the internal scores on past items of the Bialer scale were higher than on fz~tureitems; retarded persons took credit for successful past outcomes and blamed themselves for unsuccessful past outcomes but did not express confidence in their ability to affect future outcomes. In the present study we developed a multidimensional children's scale, the Tel Aviv Locus of Control, which included the positive-negative dimension of the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire, but added two new dimensions, content and time, respectively. With respect to content, the new scale consisted of items taken from three important settings within a child's life: school, home, and neighborhood. Within the school setting half the items dealt with the child's relationship with the teacher and half with his coping with the formal academic curriculum; within the home items dealt with parents and siblings; and within the neighborhood, there were items about relations with familiar and unfamiliar age peers. The new scale also added a time dimension: attributing responsibility for events that are occurring or have occurred (herein referred to as the Part Scale) versus the stated intention to behave in a manner calculated to bring about a desired consequence (herein referred to as the Future Scale). This distinction can be best understood by contrasting equivalent items in Past and Future Scales." "pies of the Past and Future Scales may be obtained as Document NAPS-02656 from Microfiche Publications, 440 Park Ave. South, New York, N. Y. 10016. Remit $3.00 for microfiche or $5.75 for photocopy.
DIMENSIONS OF LOCUS OF CONTROL IN CHILDREN
525
Items in the Past Scale permit the respondent to attribute successful and/or unsuccessful past outcomes to his own efforts or to forces beyond his control. When the respondent answers in an internal direction, we make the following assumptions in order to account for the relationship hypothesized throughout the research literature (Joe, 1971) between internal scores and constructive behaviors: ( 1 ) The respondent believes that his efforts will influence futgre outcomes. ( 2 ) The respondent translates this belief or motivational expectancy into behavior, making greater efforts on his own behalf than a respondent with an external motivational expectancy. ( 3 ) The greater efforts of the respondent result in more constructive behaviors. In future items the motivational expectancy is explicit thereby eliminating the necessity of assuming an implicit motivational expectancy. Since an assumed expectancy may be a less valid index of a motive than an expressed expectancy, one might well expect the relationship to constructive behaviors to be stronger for future items than for past items. Items in the Past Scale represent an a posteriori judgment of motivational expectancy by the examiner, while items in the Future Scale represent an a prior; statement of behavioral intention and of motivational expectancy by the subject. Two studies are herein reporred. In the first scudy we investigated the three dimensions of the Tel Aviv scale: ( 1 ) Past versus Future Scale, ( 2 ) positive versus negative subscale, and ( 3 ) specific loci (teacher, curriculum, parent, sibling, friend, stranger) in a representative sample of children drawn from lower-middle to middle-class urban families in the Tel-Aviv area over a large age range, Grades 4 through 8. Questions of reliability and internal consistency of scales, subscales, and loci were examined. In addition comparisons were made of the level of control scores in Past versus Future Scales, positive versus negative subscale, and among loci. The second study provided validity data by analyzing the three dimensions as a function of age, intelligence, academic achievement and personality characteristics. These questions were investigated by comparing the subjects of the first study with a highly select sample of intellectually gifted children from the TelAviv area. STUDYI Method Subjects.--Subjects were 298 children (157 boys and 141 girls) from five different schools in the Tel-Aviv area with rwo intact classes tested at each grade level from 4 through 8. Materials and procedure.-The Tel Aviv Locus of Control Scale was group administered to subjects in their regular classrooms. It consisted of two 24-item scales, the Past Scale and a corresponding Future Scale always administered in that order. Half of the items in each scale referred to successful outcomes and
526
N. A. MILGRAM & R. M. MILGRAM
half to unsuccessful outcomes, yielding 12-item positive and negative subscales, respectively. In addition, each scale was divided into six loci, with four items representing a given locus (teacher, parent, etc.), a pair of items describing successful outcomes, and a pair referring to failures. All items in the Past Scale provided the subject with two alternate sentence completions, an internal and an external explanation. The subject was instructed to select from among five response alternatives: ( 1 ) the external explanation only; ( 2 ) both explanations, but external more than the internal; ( 3 ) both explanations equally; ( 4 ) both statements, but internal more than external; and ( 5 ) the internal explanation only. This type of response alternative is unique to the Tel Aviv scale; all previous scales permitted either yes or no to a given statement, e.g., the Bialer, or a selection between the internal or the external explanacion only, e.g., the I-E or the intellectual achievement responsibility scales. In the Future Scale only three response alternatives were provided as shown in the example cited earlier: (1) an internal expeccancy and accompanying verbalized intention; ( 2 ) an external expectancy with the appropriate intention; and ( 3 ) a middle case where the intention is internal, but the expectancy is external ( I will make the effort, but do not believe that it will make any difference). To reduce response set, the order of external and internal statements was randomized and items representing the positive-negative dimension and the different loci were randomly distributed across each scale. Resalts Reliability and internal consistelzcy.-The smallest unit of analysis was a pair of items, positive or negative, representing the same locus. The split-half reliability of each scale was computed by dividing the 12 pairs into two matching sets. With reference to the Past Scale, the coefficients corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula, of Grades 4 to 8 were 45, .67, 39, .61 and .31, respectively. With reference to the Future Scale, the corresponding coefficients were .84, .88, .93, .74, and .74. It may be concluded that the split-half reliability coefficients were adequate for the Future Scale, but less so for the Past Scale. Another way to assess the internal consistency of each scale was to examine the rank order of the 24 items from most to least internal across grade levels. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient for Grades 4-6 versus Grades 7-8 was .84 for both Past and Future Scales, thus indicating internal consistency across grade levels. Pearson product-moment correlacions of the Past and Future Scales and of their components, separately by grade and sex, are s~unmarized in Table 1. Scores on the two scales were moderately correlated for the boys, but for the girls were significantly correlated at the older grade levels only. The correlations between positive and negative subscales in the Past and Future Scales by grade and sex are summarized in Table 1. There was a signifi-
DIMENSIONS OF LOCUS OF CONTROL IN CHILDREN
527
TABLE 1
FUTURE
Grade
AND
PAST SCALBS, POSITIVEA N D N B C A ~ V ESUBSCALBS: CORRiBLATIONS BY GRADEAND SEX
Past and Future Scales Boys n Girls
n
Past Scale Positive + Negative Subscale Boys Girls
Future Scale Positive + Negative Subxale Boys Girls
cant relationship of positive and negative subscales in the Past Scale for some younger children, especially the girls, and no relationship of subscales for the older children regardless of sex. By concrast, the magnimde of the correlations obtained across grades and sex in the Future Scale was consistently high. The intercorrelations of the six loci were examined by grade and sex. There were 15 intercorrelations for each grade/sex subgroup. The number of significant intercorrelations ( p .05, two-tail) was far greacer for boys and girls in the Future Scale (73.3% and 77.3%, respectively) than in the Past Scale (8.01% and 36.0%). The two loci of the same setting, e.g., teachercurriculum, were no more highly correlated with one another than either with any other locus. Finally, the relationship of item to total score was examined by (1) correlating pairs of positive items and pairs of negative items to their appropriate subscale and by ( 2 ) correlating these pairs of items to total scale score. These analyses are summarized in Table 2 in the form of medians of the six productmoment correlation coefficients. With few exceptions these median correlations were significant ( p < .01). Furthermore, for the F u n ~ r eScale the magnitude of these correlations was higher than that of the Past Scale in 35 of the 40 comparisons. On the basis of the evidence cited thus far it may be concluded that although the Past and Future Scales belong to the same universe of locus of control, they should be treated as separate scores. Similarly, while the subscales and loci contribute to the over-all consistency of their respective scale, they should also be seen as separate scores in their own right. The only exception to these conclusions is the exuemely high correlation of positive and negative Future subscales, indicating near equivalence. Levels of scores.-Means and standard deviations of Past and Future Scales by subscale, sex and grade are presented in Table 3. Inspection of the mean Past score by grade, from a low of 81.58 to a high of 92.48 (out of 120), indi-
DIMENSIONS OF LOCUS OF CONTROL IN CHILDREN1 NORMAN A. MILGRAM A N D ROBERTA M. MILGRAM
TeGAviv University Summary.-A multidimensional measure of locus of control, which included three dimensions of content, time, and orientation toward success-failure outcomes, was administered to non-gifted ( N = 298) and gifted (N = 166) Israeli children in Grades 4 through 8. Content was measured in three important settings in the child's life: school, home, and neighborhood. The time dimension referred to the difference becween assuming responsibility for events of the present and past versus the expression of competence to affect future outcomes. Internal consistency and reliabilities of the new instrument were adequate, especially for the Future Scale, and the three dimensions were empirically distinguishable. Relationships were found becween locus of control and age, scholastic achievement, and personalicy variables.
Considerable research has been conducted in the past decade on the construct of locus of control. Recent reviews (Lefcourt, 1966; Joe, 1971) and bibliographies (Throop & MacDonald, 1971) cite hundreds of studies on the implications of this concept for cognitive, motivational, and personal-social performance. A major methodological criticism has been raised, however, about the scales used to measure this construct in children and adults. Notwithstanding Rotter's assertion that his Internal-External Scale (I-E) is heavily loaded on a single general factor (1966), considerable evidence suggests that this scale is, in fact, multidimensional. Joe (1971) concluded his extensive review of the literature by recommending the use of specific measures rather than one generalized measure. Mirels ( 1970) extracted two factors from the I-E scale, personal mastery and mastery over political-social institutions. Viney (1974) and Gootnick ( 1974) replicated this finding, confirming both the multidimensionality of the scale and the efficacy of using specific clusters or factors within the I-E scale rather than the total score. In a comparative study of university students from eight different countries Parsons and Schneider ( 1974 ) reported low intercorrelations of five subscales of the I-E scale. With respect to locus of control scales for children, Bialer (1961) and Miller (1960) claimed adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability for their respective scales with children as young as second graders. Cromwell, Rosenthal, Shakow, and Zaber (1961) suggested that the Bialer scale could be -used with subjects whose MA levels are as low as four years, if the questions are 'This research was supported in pan by the Israel Ministry of Education and Culture, the Deparunent for Gifted Children. W e are grateful to Dr. Erika Landau, Director of Haaretz Museum enrichment program for her cooperation, to Mrs. Shlomit Neeman for her valuable assistance, and to X r . Yehudah Asformas for his wise counsel in the analysis of the data. Reprints may be obtained from Professor Norman A. Milgram, Deparunent of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Israel.
5 24
N. A. MILGRAM & R. M. MILGRAM
read aloud. On the other hand Gorsuch, Henighan, and Barnard (1972) concluded from a review of the research literature as well as from their own work that these children's scales lack adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. They cited data which indicate that children in Grades 4 and 5, of low average verbal ability, fail to understand the items even when they are read aloud to them. These children respond randomly and earn thereby a lower internal score than children who are either chronologically older or intellectually brighter. One children's scale which has achieved adequate internal consistency is the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire developed by Crandall, Katkovsky, and Crandall ( 1965). This scale is unidimensional in that all items deal with school situations. Scores on the scale consistently yielded significant relationships with academic criterion measures (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Preston, 1962; McGhee & Crandall, 1968). The authors of the scale attempted further to enhance its unidimensionality by distinguishing between assumption of responsibility for successful outcomes (the positive subscale) as compared with failure outcomes (the negative subscale). McGhee and Crandall ( 1968) reported that the negative subscale was a better predictor of academic achievement for boys, while the subscales were equally valid predictors for girls. In a study with moderately mentally retarded adolescents and young adults, Milgram (1972) noted that the internal scores on past items of the Bialer scale were higher than on fz~tureitems; retarded persons took credit for successful past outcomes and blamed themselves for unsuccessful past outcomes but did not express confidence in their ability to affect future outcomes. In the present study we developed a multidimensional children's scale, the Tel Aviv Locus of Control, which included the positive-negative dimension of the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire, but added two new dimensions, content and time, respectively. With respect to content, the new scale consisted of items taken from three important settings within a child's life: school, home, and neighborhood. Within the school setting half the items dealt with the child's relationship with the teacher and half with his coping with the formal academic curriculum; within the home items dealt with parents and siblings; and within the neighborhood, there were items about relations with familiar and unfamiliar age peers. The new scale also added a time dimension: attributing responsibility for events that are occurring or have occurred (herein referred to as the Part Scale) versus the stated intention to behave in a manner calculated to bring about a desired consequence (herein referred to as the Future Scale). This distinction can be best understood by contrasting equivalent items in Past and Future Scales." "pies of the Past and Future Scales may be obtained as Document NAPS-02656 from Microfiche Publications, 440 Park Ave. South, New York, N. Y. 10016. Remit $3.00 for microfiche or $5.75 for photocopy.
DIMENSIONS OF LOCUS OF CONTROL IN CHILDREN
525
Items in the Past Scale permit the respondent to attribute successful and/or unsuccessful past outcomes to his own efforts or to forces beyond his control. When the respondent answers in an internal direction, we make the following assumptions in order to account for the relationship hypothesized throughout the research literature (Joe, 1971) between internal scores and constructive behaviors: ( 1 ) The respondent believes that his efforts will influence futgre outcomes. ( 2 ) The respondent translates this belief or motivational expectancy into behavior, making greater efforts on his own behalf than a respondent with an external motivational expectancy. ( 3 ) The greater efforts of the respondent result in more constructive behaviors. In future items the motivational expectancy is explicit thereby eliminating the necessity of assuming an implicit motivational expectancy. Since an assumed expectancy may be a less valid index of a motive than an expressed expectancy, one might well expect the relationship to constructive behaviors to be stronger for future items than for past items. Items in the Past Scale represent an a posteriori judgment of motivational expectancy by the examiner, while items in the Future Scale represent an a prior; statement of behavioral intention and of motivational expectancy by the subject. Two studies are herein reporred. In the first scudy we investigated the three dimensions of the Tel Aviv scale: ( 1 ) Past versus Future Scale, ( 2 ) positive versus negative subscale, and ( 3 ) specific loci (teacher, curriculum, parent, sibling, friend, stranger) in a representative sample of children drawn from lower-middle to middle-class urban families in the Tel-Aviv area over a large age range, Grades 4 through 8. Questions of reliability and internal consistency of scales, subscales, and loci were examined. In addition comparisons were made of the level of control scores in Past versus Future Scales, positive versus negative subscale, and among loci. The second study provided validity data by analyzing the three dimensions as a function of age, intelligence, academic achievement and personality characteristics. These questions were investigated by comparing the subjects of the first study with a highly select sample of intellectually gifted children from the TelAviv area. STUDYI Method Subjects.--Subjects were 298 children (157 boys and 141 girls) from five different schools in the Tel-Aviv area with rwo intact classes tested at each grade level from 4 through 8. Materials and procedure.-The Tel Aviv Locus of Control Scale was group administered to subjects in their regular classrooms. It consisted of two 24-item scales, the Past Scale and a corresponding Future Scale always administered in that order. Half of the items in each scale referred to successful outcomes and
526
N. A. MILGRAM & R. M. MILGRAM
half to unsuccessful outcomes, yielding 12-item positive and negative subscales, respectively. In addition, each scale was divided into six loci, with four items representing a given locus (teacher, parent, etc.), a pair of items describing successful outcomes, and a pair referring to failures. All items in the Past Scale provided the subject with two alternate sentence completions, an internal and an external explanation. The subject was instructed to select from among five response alternatives: ( 1 ) the external explanation only; ( 2 ) both explanations, but external more than the internal; ( 3 ) both explanations equally; ( 4 ) both statements, but internal more than external; and ( 5 ) the internal explanation only. This type of response alternative is unique to the Tel Aviv scale; all previous scales permitted either yes or no to a given statement, e.g., the Bialer, or a selection between the internal or the external explanacion only, e.g., the I-E or the intellectual achievement responsibility scales. In the Future Scale only three response alternatives were provided as shown in the example cited earlier: (1) an internal expeccancy and accompanying verbalized intention; ( 2 ) an external expectancy with the appropriate intention; and ( 3 ) a middle case where the intention is internal, but the expectancy is external ( I will make the effort, but do not believe that it will make any difference). To reduce response set, the order of external and internal statements was randomized and items representing the positive-negative dimension and the different loci were randomly distributed across each scale. Resalts Reliability and internal consistelzcy.-The smallest unit of analysis was a pair of items, positive or negative, representing the same locus. The split-half reliability of each scale was computed by dividing the 12 pairs into two matching sets. With reference to the Past Scale, the coefficients corrected by the Spearman-Brown formula, of Grades 4 to 8 were 45, .67, 39, .61 and .31, respectively. With reference to the Future Scale, the corresponding coefficients were .84, .88, .93, .74, and .74. It may be concluded that the split-half reliability coefficients were adequate for the Future Scale, but less so for the Past Scale. Another way to assess the internal consistency of each scale was to examine the rank order of the 24 items from most to least internal across grade levels. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient for Grades 4-6 versus Grades 7-8 was .84 for both Past and Future Scales, thus indicating internal consistency across grade levels. Pearson product-moment correlacions of the Past and Future Scales and of their components, separately by grade and sex, are s~unmarized in Table 1. Scores on the two scales were moderately correlated for the boys, but for the girls were significantly correlated at the older grade levels only. The correlations between positive and negative subscales in the Past and Future Scales by grade and sex are summarized in Table 1. There was a signifi-
DIMENSIONS OF LOCUS OF CONTROL IN CHILDREN
527
TABLE 1
FUTURE
Grade
AND
PAST SCALBS, POSITIVEA N D N B C A ~ V ESUBSCALBS: CORRiBLATIONS BY GRADEAND SEX
Past and Future Scales Boys n Girls
n
Past Scale Positive + Negative Subscale Boys Girls
Future Scale Positive + Negative Subxale Boys Girls
cant relationship of positive and negative subscales in the Past Scale for some younger children, especially the girls, and no relationship of subscales for the older children regardless of sex. By concrast, the magnimde of the correlations obtained across grades and sex in the Future Scale was consistently high. The intercorrelations of the six loci were examined by grade and sex. There were 15 intercorrelations for each grade/sex subgroup. The number of significant intercorrelations ( p .05, two-tail) was far greacer for boys and girls in the Future Scale (73.3% and 77.3%, respectively) than in the Past Scale (8.01% and 36.0%). The two loci of the same setting, e.g., teachercurriculum, were no more highly correlated with one another than either with any other locus. Finally, the relationship of item to total score was examined by (1) correlating pairs of positive items and pairs of negative items to their appropriate subscale and by ( 2 ) correlating these pairs of items to total scale score. These analyses are summarized in Table 2 in the form of medians of the six productmoment correlation coefficients. With few exceptions these median correlations were significant ( p < .01). Furthermore, for the F u n ~ r eScale the magnitude of these correlations was higher than that of the Past Scale in 35 of the 40 comparisons. On the basis of the evidence cited thus far it may be concluded that although the Past and Future Scales belong to the same universe of locus of control, they should be treated as separate scores. Similarly, while the subscales and loci contribute to the over-all consistency of their respective scale, they should also be seen as separate scores in their own right. The only exception to these conclusions is the exuemely high correlation of positive and negative Future subscales, indicating near equivalence. Levels of scores.-Means and standard deviations of Past and Future Scales by subscale, sex and grade are presented in Table 3. Inspection of the mean Past score by grade, from a low of 81.58 to a high of 92.48 (out of 120), indi-
