Locus of Control revisited: development of a new bidimensional measure

Locus of control (LOC) has a long traditionin Psychology, and various instruments have been designed for its measurement. However, the dimensionality of the construct is unclear, and still gives rise to considerable controversy. The aim of the present work is to present new evidence of validity inre...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Suárez-Álvarez, Javier, Pedrosa, Ignacio, García-Cueto, Eduardo, Muñiz, José
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Murcia
Repositorio:DIGITUM. Depósito Digital Institucional de la Universidad de Murcia
OAI Identifier:oai:digitum.um.es:10201/144242
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10201/144242
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Internal locus of control
External locus of control
Locus de control interno
Locus de control externo
CDU::1 - Filosofía y psicología::159.9 - Psicología
Descripción
Sumario:Locus of control (LOC) has a long traditionin Psychology, and various instruments have been designed for its measurement. However, the dimensionality of the construct is unclear, and still gives rise to considerable controversy. The aim of the present work is to present new evidence of validity inrelation to the dimensionality of LOC. To this end, we developed a new measurement instrument with 23 items. The sample was made up of 697 Spanish participants, of whom 57.5% were women (M=22.43; SD= 9.19).The results support the bidimensionality of LOC: internal (α=.87) and external (α=.85). Furthermore, both subscales have shown adequate validity evidence in relation to self-efficacy, achievement motivation and optimism (rxy> .21). Statistically significant differences were found by sex (p < .05): men scored higher in external LOC and women in internal LOC. The validity evidence supports a two-dimensional structure for the LOC, and the measurement instrument developed showed adequate psychometric properties.