The Impact of Internal and External Locus ofControl and Self-Efficacy onAcademic AchievementAmong High School Students

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the impact of locus of control (internal and external) and self- efficacy on academic achievement of high school female students. The sample of the study consists of 374 high school female students selected randomly from six government schools in Riyadh. Rotter's Locus of Control Scale and Sherer & Adams's Self- Efficacy Scale are the two instruments applied in this study.

The Results show that there are statistically significantdifferencesinacademic achievement in favor of external locus of control and highself-efficacy. There are no differencesinself-efficacy (high or low) attributed to locus of control(internal and external). Nonetheless, there is a difference between self-efficacy (high or low) attributed to the different specialization (science and literary). There are no statistically significantdifferencesin locus of control attributed to specialization (science and literary). The regression analysis shows that academic achievement of high school female students can be predicted from their locus of control and self-efficacy.