Measurement of Teachers’ Beliefs in Their Control over Student Outcome

AbstractThis paper describes the development of a scale designed to measure teachers' generalized expectancies for internal-external control over student success and failure in the classroom. The 28-item forced-choice scale is internally consistent and only moderately correlated with Rotter's I-E Scale. Validation studies indicated that the scale predicted teachers' behaviors in the classroom, including their willingness to adopt new instructional techniques following inservice training, while the I-E Scale did not. Directions for future research are discussed.