Table 1. Showing correlation between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all female students
Motivation is regarded as the alpha and omega of learning .It is the heart of teaching learning process. Motivation is defined as an internal state that arouses, directs, and maintains the behavior over time. Thus motivation is the pivotal component of learning and locus of control which is one of the important factors it stems from. Locus of control is a belief about the primary source of a person's behavior- either internal (within a person) or external (with in a person's physical and social environment). The main aim of this research was to measure the locus of control of students in order to determine the degree of their externality or internality of locus of control. And to find out the gender difference in locus of control orientation at College and University levels to relate the locus of control with academic achievement. Sample of study consisted of 466 students, out of which 205 were boys and 261 were girls. This sample was chosen from two female college and one male college located in Rawalpindi city and one Co-education University Institute located in Islamabad city. The college students were mostly of 16 and 17 years age group, where as University students were in the 20 and 21 year age group. For the purpose of measuring locus of control questionnaire was used with a few modifications. Academic achievement was measured by the marks obtained by the sample in their recently held examination at their institutions. The obtained data were analyzed and interpreted using statistical tools such as: Mean Standard Deviation, t-test and correlation coefficient. The results show that the majority of students were found to be more internal than external in their locus of control. This result is enlightened with others studies that, locus of control and academic achievement were related positively to each other. Boys were found to be more internal than girls at college level however, no gender differences in locus of control were found at the University level.
Motivation is one of the most important components of learning. It holds a pivotal role in the teaching learning process. Though teacher's motivation level occupies a very important position, yet it is always dependent on the students' process. Motivation is the heart of learning. A stronger inner urge will mean the stronger efforts. Adequate motivation not only sets in motion the activity, which results in learning, but also sustains and directs it. It is concerned with the arousal of interest in learning (Chand, 1990) .
Bhatia (1997) states that,” Motivation is an important factor in learning process. Motivation implies the arousal and maintenance of interest in learning where interest is a basic factor in learning. No learning can take place without the interest of the learner. This means that the motivation plays a vital role in learning. In fact no real learner is in proper frame of mind for learning. It concentrates the attention and energy of a person on the activity or knowledge to be learnt.”
According to Morgan (1974),”Motivation as a term has proved to be very illusive concept. The psychologists have studied it at great length and they have arrived on different definitions on it. Motivation is the term which is covering out about everything that psychologists want to say about the subject. It has three distinct aspects such as, some motivation state within the person impelling him toward some goal, the behavior he displays striving for the goal, and achievement of the goal.” Motivation may be regarded as something, which prompts and energizes an individual to act or behave in a particular manner at time for attaining some specific goal or purpose
Considerable research has been done based upon the theories of motivation. The over riding concern with motivation theories are due to interest in behavioral science. The works of Darwin and Freud have given fillip to this field of psychology. Since nature and motives of men have been described variously from time to time, It has given rise to various theories of motivation(Dececco, 1971). Current theories of motivation include Maslow's hierarchy of needs, McClelland's Achievement Motivation, Rotter's Locus of Control, Wiener's Attribution Theory (crowl et al., 1997).
The first variable of the proposed research is “locus of control”. The term ‘locus of control’ was originally introduced by Rotter (1954) whose thinking reflects a blend of humanistic and behavioristic tradition. Rotter was not only the first to define the concept, but also presented a social learning theory framework, in which it could be incorporated.
Rotter (1975) looks at motivation as a mental phenomenon. Locus (location) is a personal belief about who can control the consequences of one's action. People with external locus of control believe that the consequence of their action (success and failure) is controlled by others. They do not see a strong link between their efforts and outcomes, and between their action and consequences of that action. People with internal locus of control believe that, they have a direct control upon the outcomes of their action. Some personalities are external, some are internal but most of the personalities are neither completely external nor internal (Arif.2003). Maer (1976), has operationally defined locus of control as,” It describes continuum of belief as whether one's outcomes are the result of internal control (e.g. effort) or external control (e.g., powerful other or fate)”.
Locus of control is a personality trait that is concerned on whether people attribute responsibility for their own failure or success to internal factor or external factor .One central concept to attribution theory is locus of control (Rotter, 1954). The word “locus” means location .A person with an “internal locus of control” is one who believes that success or failure is located in his or her own efforts or abilities. Someone with an “external locus of control “is more likely to believe that other factors, such as luck, task difficulty, or other people's action, cause success or failure (Slavin, 1994) .
Locus of control is assessed on a continuum, ranging from internal to external. Individuals at the internal end of this continuum are called as having internal locus of control, while those at the external end are those who have external locus of control According to Rotter (1975), internalizes are those people who believe that they are autonomous, who are the master of their own fate and bear personal responsibility for what happens to them. In contrast, Externalizes view themselves as helpless pawns of fate, controlled by out side forces over which they have little influence, if any.
In educational setting, perceptions of control refer to the students’ personal view of the source of control over task outcomes, that is the cause of success end failure in educational task. Researchers (Nicholls, 1984; Weiner, 1984) have indicated that students who attribute their successes and failures in educational tasks in internal and controllable sources (e.g. students 'own efforts or students who use of appropriate strategies) are more likely to persist in the face of difficulty . On the other hand ,students attribute their success and failure to external uncontrollable source (e.g. powerful others, luck task difficulty or inherent abilities ) are more likely to give up when they come across difficulties in their learning .
One concept that is central to attribution theory is locus of control(Rotter, 1966). Locus of control refers to the type of attribution students make for their success and failure on their school task. People with an external locus of control attribute the outcome in their lives to their own action and choice. Locus of control is defined in the Meyers textbook as the extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controlled by chance or outside forces. In other words, there are two extremes in locus of control, Those who feel that they control the events that happen throughout their lives have an internal locus of control, and those who feel that outside forces are responsible for their fate have an external locus of control. Persons with an internal locus of control are considered to be more likely to higher success rates in school. Research helps us to understand role-play by self-confidence and a feeling of being in control. For example, research suggests that students perform at higher levels if they have confidence in themselves, and personal efficacy is a matter of internal locus of control. Students with more internal locus of control attribute their success to their own abilities and not to luck or chance, as do persons with external locus of control. When students realize that, their thoughts control their action (i.e. their locus of control is internal) and they can positively affect their own beliefs, motivation and academic performance. Rotter (1966) developed the locus of control as an attempt to combine the older, which are more established enforcement approaches with the newly developed cognitive approach of attribute comparatively performed better than those who made an external attribution. It has been also established that students with an internal locus of control spent more time, whereas those with an external locus of control spent more time at the same task.
Researchers investigated locus of control, academic and sex of 9th grade students by administrating the ‘Nowsickland Locus of Control Scale’ to 267 students from three secondary schools in a suburban community. The researchers wanted to determine if these factors were related to the expectation that locus of control is correlated with the exam scores. The result of the study indicated that, their hypothesis was correct. The advance level students were significantly more internal than general level students, although basic level students did not differ significantly from advanced or general level students.
Although much work has been done on locus of control factor in the outside world, educational curriculum and teaching methodology were never built upon those concepts and all subjects were being treated alike. It was high time that steps were taken ahead in using new and innovative concepts for teaching the young folk.
The objectives of the study were as follows
The following Null hypotheses were formulated.
Following methods and procedures were adopted for this study.
The target population comprised of about 3000 college students of 25 Government colleges located in the Rawalpindi city and approximately 8000 students of 5 private sector universities located in Islamabad city.
Sample of the study consisted of 466 students. This sample was chosen from two female colleges and one male college located in Rawalpindi city and one coeducational University Institute located in Islamabad city and the sample was chosen randomly.
The proposed research was correlation in nature.
In order to measure locus of control, the questionnaires consisted of 20 items. Each item consisted of two alternative responses. These questionnaires were developed by Rotter(1966) and has been used extensively in various studies. The researcher used the questionnaires with some modification. For example, some irrelevant items were wiped out from the questionnaires, because of being irrelevant to our culture. The items in the questionnaires were converted into simple English and then translated into Urdu so as to get high response with accurate information from the respondents.
The data was collected by the researchers themselves through one questionnaire (for measurement of the variable of locus of control) developed and validated through Pilot Testing. Reliabilty of the research tool was found to be (Cronbach's Alpha) 0.787.
Data collected through the questionnaire was tabulated, analyzed by Mean, Correlation and Independent Sample t- test by using (SPSS-XII).
Following findings were made on the basis of the analyzed data.
There is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all female students.
Table1 denotes that, the correlation coefficient between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all girls is r=0.77. Where as the table value of correlation is 0.19 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all female students is rejected and it is concluded that there is a significant relationship between the variable of locus of control and academic achievement of female students.
There is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all male students.
Table 2 exhibits that, the correlation coefficient between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all male students is r=0.66. Where as the table value of correlation is 0.19 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all male students is rejected and it is concluded that there is a significant relationship between the variable of locus of control and academic achievement of all male students.
Table 1. Showing correlation between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all female students
Table 2. Showing correlation between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all male students
There is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all male and female students.
Table 3 specifies that, the correlation coefficient between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all male and female students is r=0.72. Where as the table value of correlation is 0.19 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all male and female students is rejected and it is concluded that there is a significant relationship between the variable of locus of control and academic achievement of all male and female students.
There is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of male college students.
Table 4 stipulates that, the correlation coefficient between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all boys is r=0.69. Where as the table value of correlation is 0.19 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all male college students is rejected and it is concluded that, there is a significant relationship between the variable of locus of control and academic achievement of male college students.
Table 3. Showing relationship between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all male and female students
Table: 4 Showing correlation between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of male college students
There is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of female college students.
Table 5 indicates that, the correlation coefficient between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of all girls is 0.80. Where as the table value of correlation is 0.19 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that, there is no significant relationship between the locus of control scores and academic achievement scores of all female college students is rejected and it is concluded that, there is significant relationship between the variable of locus of control and academic achievement of all female college students.
There is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of male and female college students.
Table 6 reflects that, the obtained t value of 2.35 is more than the table t value of 1.97 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of male and female college students is rejected and it is concluded that, there is a significant difference between mean locus of control scores of all male and female students in favour of male students.
Table 5. Showing correlation between locus of control score and academic achievement scores of female college students
Table 6. Showing the mean score difference between mean locus of control scores between all male and female students
Table 7. Showing the mean score difference between mean locus of control scores between all male and female university students
There is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of male and female university students.
Table 7 designates that, the obtained t value of 0.28 is less than the table t value of 1.97 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of male and female college students is accepted and it is concluded that there is a difference in favour of male university students but that difference is not statistically significant.
There is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of female college and university students.
Table 8 specifies that, the obtained t value of 1.04 is less than the table value of t 1.98 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of female students of college and university is accepted and it is concluded that there is a difference in favour of female college students but that difference is not statistically significant.
There is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of male college and university students.
Table 9 specifies that, the obtained t-value of 2.26 is more than the table t value of 1.97 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of male college and university students is rejected and it is concluded that there is a significant difference between mean locus of control scores of male college and university students in favour of male university students.
Table 8. Showing the mean score difference between mean locus of control scores between female college and university students
Table 9. Showing the mean score difference between mean locus of control scores between male college and university students
There is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of all and male and female students.
Table 10 indicates that, the obtained t-value of 3.82 is greater than the table t-value of 1.98 at .05 level of significance. So the null hypothesis stating that, there is no significant difference between the mean scores on locus of control of all male and female students is rejected and it is concluded that, there is a significant difference between mean locus of control scores of all male and female students in favour of male students
Table 10. Showing the mean score difference between mean locus of control scores between male college and university students
Further studies on locus of control and its relation to such variables such as age, gender, family size, birth order, socio-economic status etc are to be carried out.