Empirical Findings

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primary and middle school achievement scores, and not with their actual secondary school achievement. Therefore neither of the two researchers actually examined the relationship between locus of control and academic achievement for secondary school children. It seems both important and worthwhile, then, to investigate this area.

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Using Rotter’s I-E scale with 175 Japanese (117 males and 58 females) and 119 American (59 males and 60 females) undergraduates, Bond & Tornatzky (1973) found no sex differences on locus of control when the populations were tested either together or separately. The lack of sex difference is perhaps surprising in the Japanese sample, given Japanese traditions regarding the lower status of women. For the author, this result might be explained by higher achievement motivation being generally correlated with lower externality (Rotter, 1966). As the ratio of men to women in Japanese universities is greater than 4: 1, it is probable, therefore, that this female population has a relatively higher level of achievement motivation than their male counterparts.

Nowicki & Strickland (1973) found that females had more internal scores in grades 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11, whereas males had more internal scores only in grades 4, 7, and 12.

Though the authors pointed out that most of the mean differences were non significant, they did not mention which mean differences were significant or which were non significant. As they recorded neither t-test nor f-test results in order to find out whether these sex differences were significant or not, it is difficult to have a clear idea about their findings.

Using the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale with more than 1,500 students (719 males and 819 females) from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United States, McGinnies et al., (1974) found a significant main effect of sex difference at the 0.001 level on locus of control, and concluded that females had more external mean I-E scores than males. However, in detail, the mean I-E score for males was found to be significantly more internal than for females within the Australian and Swedish samples (p<0.05), although sex differences were not significant within any of the other three countries.

Parsons & Schneider (1974), using Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (1966) with 539 university students, investigated locus of control differences among

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Eastern and Western societies. Data from eight countries including Japan, India, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States and Israel were subjected to an analysis of variance. A significant sex effect (p<0.001) was found in favour of males. The authors found that “consistently higher external scores for the females is a general finding across countries”. However, it should be emphasised that the effect was small and that t-tests of gender differences within countries were significant only for Israel.

Furthermore, the significant overall gender effect was limited to the “Luck-Fate” and

“Leadership-Success” dimensions. The others subscales were: “Politics”, “Respect”, and “Academic”. Parsons & Schneider (1974) noted that females were not given equal opportunity for leadership positions and therefore the results on the Leadership-Success scale were not surprising.

Louden (1977) in his comparative research in minority group adolescents in English multi-racial secondary schools, found no significant effect of sex on locus of control when all samples were combined. However, English boys were more internal than English girls. Asian girls were more internal than Asian boys, and there were no sex differences between West Indian adolescents.

Moore (1980) found no sex differences in academic locus of control (Crandall et al.’s IAR) among 8, 11, and 13 year old students in England.

Halpin, Halpin & Whiddon (1981) found no sex differences in Crandall et al.’s IAR Scale among either American Indian (male = 51, female = 46) or White (male = 68, female = 60) junior high and senior high school students.

Lok (1983) found no significant differences between the mean scores of 10-12 year old English boys and girls, in locus of control.

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Trice (1985) found no sex differences in locus of control either among teacher-education students at a state college, or among psychology course students at a private college in the USA.

Using Rotter’s I-E Locus of Control Scale with 46 male and 107 female undergraduates in the College of Education in the U.S.A., Crump, Hickson, & Laman (1985) found that females were significantly more internally oriented than males. The study revealed that females were relatively equally distributed according to their internal / external preference (49.5% internal, 50.0% external), while males were classified as predominantly internal (78.6%).

Korkut (1986) found no sex differences in locus of control among 540 Turkish primary school students, using the Nowicki-Strickland LOC scale.

Using Rotter’s I-E Locus of Control Scale with 148 (male =76, female = 72) Transkeian students enrolled in a teacher training programme, Mwamwenda & Mwamwenda (1986) found a significant sex difference (p< 0.01) in favour of male students. The authors argued that their sex differences in locus of control could be accounted for by the fact that the males were older than the females. They also argued that sex differences may be socially and culturally explained in the sense that normally, in Transkeian society, men play a more dominant role than women.

Chiu (1987), in his research investigating locus of control differences between American and Chinese adolescents (10th grade students), found that females had significantly higher I- scores (more internal) than males (p<.01). The author pointed out that the gender difference was caused mainly by the American subjects, as American females were significantly more internal than American males (p< 0.01). However, there were no sex differences both in I+ (self-responsibility for success) and I Total (self-responsibility for success and failure situations).

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Yesilyaprak (1988) in her research to find out factors which effect students’ locus of control, revealed no sex differences among 720 secondary school students, in Turkey.

Investigating sex differences in perceived locus of control, De Brabander & Boone (1989) collected and analysed the responses to the Rotter scale of 87 male and 60 female undergraduates in Belgium, in an attempt to replicate the findings of Little, (1979), McGinnies, Nordholm, Ward, & Bhanthumnavin, (1974), and Rotter, (1966). In the study of De Brabander & Boone (1989), females appeared to be more external than male students and sex differences were significant. Their results, however, indicated that the Rotter scale may not measure the female perception of control. The internal reliability of the female sample, measured with the Cronbach alpha, was lower when compared with the male sample (0.56 and 0.73 respectively). They hypothesise that the female responses to the items are determined by what they feel to be socially acceptable answers, and the answers were a reflection of the general perception that in most societies women are more dependent than men on external factors.

Using the Sphere -of- Control Questionnaire with 400 British (200 male and 200 female) and 450 Arab (225 male and 223 female) university students, Abdallah (1989a) found no significant sex differences in locus of control among either group.

Jensen et al., (1990) reported that men scored more internally than women in a sample numbering 11,729. The data was collected in 1981 and was obtained from the European Value Study Group survey of basic human values. The statistics were from nine Western European countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, Spain and Ireland. However, the authors did not give any explanation of whether sex differences in this study was statistically significant or not.

Young-Sheng (1990) found no significant sex differences in the locus of control scores of 1st and 4th year middle school students in China.

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Giderer (1990), in his research, tried to find out sex differences in locus of control scores of students who belonged to different types of secondary schools, “the science secondary school” and “the general secondary school”, in Turkey. The results showed no sex differences among students of “the science secondary school”. However, significant sex differences were found in favour of boys among students of “the general secondary school”.

Singh & Verma (1990) revealed significant sex differences in favour of girls among 12-28 year old subjects, in two Indian societies.

Tashakkori & Thompson (1991) collected data from a longitudinal sample of 14,721 White (7,193 men, 7,528 women) and 5,197 Black (2,400 men, 2,797 women) American high school students. The data was tested first between ages 16 and 19, and was then examined in two follow-ups, four and six years later, to determine sex differences in locus of control orientation. The results indicated that female adolescents tended to be more internal than males, within both Blacks and Whites. It also appeared that sex differences between Whites were greater than between Blacks, but these differences tended to be relatively small. However, the authors did not give any information about whether these sex differences were statistically significant or not.

Karnes & D’ilio (1991), when investigating 68 rural, Southern American elementary gifted students, aged 8 to 14 years, used the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale, and found that girls tended to be more internal than boys. Again, they did not state whether the results of their findings was significant or not.

Maqsud & Rouhani (1991) found no sex differences in locus of control in 9th grade secondary school students (aged 16-17), in the Republic of Southern Africa.

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Using the Clifford’s (1976) Academic Achievement Accountability Scale (CAAAS) with 120 (60 male and 60 female) middle school students in Bophuthatswana, Maqsud (1993) found no significant sex differences on academic locus of control.

Yates et al., (1994) using the Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Locus of Control Scale with 44 female and 48 male, severely disturbed adolescents in the USA, found that neither gender differed significantly on locus of control.

The Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Locus of Control Scale was used with ethnically diverse, gifted, middle school students, in the USA. The study involved 90, sixth, seventh and eighth grade African-American students (31 boys, 59 girls), 35 third-generation Mexican-American students (17 boys, 18 girls), and 45 third-third-generation Chinese-American students (35 boys, 9 girls). Yong (1994) found non-significant sex differences for the three samples. The findings of this study suggest that ethnically diverse students, regardless of their gender, tend to believe that they are in control of their destiny, that their lives are not controlled by external factors and that they assume responsibility for their failures.