School locus of control in college students: A confirmatory analysis

The multifactorial structure of La Rosa's (1986) locus of control construct was evaluated in a school contex. The sample was made of 152 psychology students from a Mexican Northwestern public University. A questionnaire was applied, which was based on La Rosa's questionnaire. The items were adapted to the school context that was studied (test conditions, tasks,student role, grades), and a confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the data. Results did not allowe for the 5 factor solution proposed by La Rosa (1986). Consequently, a four factor structure for school locus of control was modeled, which showed goodnes of fit but lacked of discriminant validity between 3 out of the 4 factors modeled. This led to modeling the classic locus of control bifactorial structure, namely external and internal locus of control. This bifactorial model showed statistical and practical goodness of fit, as well as internal consistency, and convergent and discriminant construct validity. It was concluded that the subjects percived that some of the school events (grade point average, and passing scores) depended only on their behavior (what they do or do not do), while other events (performing tasks, getting low grade points, or not having a qualified education) depended on other persons related to their scholar situation.