ACADEMIC LOCUS OF CONTROL AND DECISION-MAKING STYLES: A CORRELATIONAL STUDY

Abstract

The goal of the research was to identify how Academic Locus of Control and decision making styles relate to each other in university students while also taking into account the relationship of gender with these variables. The study used a correlational design to investigate the proposed hypotheses. A collected sample of 200 university students of ages between 18 and 25 years. The sample was gathered using convenient sampling techniques from universities, given that the participant was enrolled in a programme at the university. The tools used in this research were the Academic Locus of Control (ALOC) Scale (Rev.) (Curtis & Trice, 2013) to quantify the Academic Locus of Control of the sample. To assess and measure the decision making styles of the sample, the Decision Style Questionnaire (Leykin & DeRubeis, 2010) was used. The results showed that brooding decision making style strongly correlated with external locus of control. No significant difference was found in the Academic Locus of Control score between the two genders in the sample, males and females, however, males were found to be more confident decision makers, and females were found to be more dependent decision makers.