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Literature Review

The locus of control is a cognitive category which is connected with processes of perception
and with understanding of ones possibilities and of undertaken actions. Individuals with an
internal locus of control believe that all events in their lives are or will be a result of their own
actions, for which they are responsible. If anything good, joyful, or happy happens to them, they
ascribe it to their own actions, and similarly if they experience harm, unhappiness or failure,
they also feel responsible. They are convinced that they shape their own lives. Individuals with
an external locus of control, on the other hand, explain their successes by good fortune, and any
failures and unhappy events by bad luck, destiny, or external human and situational factors.
They are convinced of their limitations and lack of possibilities (Rotter, 1966).
Individuals with internal locus of control take the credit for success and blame for failure. They
believe that they are responsible for the good and bad things. On the contrary, individuals with
external locus of control tend to blame outside forces for their failure and success (William,
2004)
An individuals locus of control expectancy allows reinforcement to be attributed to four
possible factors: ability, effort, task difficulty and luck (Weiner, Frieze, Kulka, Reed, Rest &
Rosenbaum, 1971, p. 41).
There is a relation between internal locus of control and successful performance. Individuals
with an internal locus of control have faith in their ability to perform their task. They feel
personally responsible for the jobs success or job's failure. On the contrary, externals are less
attracted to achievement-related tasks. They attribute their failure more likely to faith and luck
(Klein & Wasserstein-Warnet, 1999).
Going through previous study, we came to know about how locus of control influences the
academic performance of the students. Most of the research has been conducted in schools and
high schools. So, we wanted to know whether the same result will occur if we conducted this
research in graduate level. Because the graduate level students are matured than the student of
schools, the result may not be same in case of the graduates and undergraduate students.
Similarly, we did not find such research done in the Nepalese context. So, we want to know
whether the result will deviate or will be same in the context of Nepal.

Abstract

We prepared this report to analyze the effect of locus of control (a psychological social learning
theory) on the academic performance of students. For this purpose, we conducted research on 25
students of MBA, 9th Batch, SOMTU. Before conducting our research, we assumed that internal
locus of control has positive impact and external locus of control has negative impact on the
academic performance of students. To test these hypotheses, we collected primary data through
interviews and questionnaires. We used the questionnaire related to locus of control test
developed by J.B. Rotter (1966). We also collected their academic result of SLC, intermediate
and bachelor level and then we compare it with their academic result to know the implications of
the locus of control on the academic performance. The data was analyzed qualitatively and
quantitatively. We used statistical tools to analyze the collected data.From our analysis, we found
that 17 students have internal locus of control meaning that they attribute their success or failure
of their work to themselves and 8 have external locus of control meaning that their results are
affected by external factors (luck, fate). The finding of our research is that there is no consistency
in the improvement of the performance of the internal LOC student because the performance
degrades from SLC to intermediate while improves from intermediate to bachelor level. So the
first hypothesis is partly accepted. The next finding which is related to second hypothesis
highlights that the performance of the students having external LOC is decreased from SLC to
intermediate and intermediate to bachelor level so the result is consistent on this part which
means that the second hypothesis is confirmed or proved. The report concludes that there is a
need for understanding the type of locus of control among the students which shapes students
performance.

Keywords: Locus of Control (internal and external), academic performance

Abstract

We prepared this report to analyze the effect of locus of control (a psychological social learning
theory) on the academic performance of students. For this purpose, we conducted research on 25
students of MBA, 9th Batch, SOMTU. Before conducting our research, we assumed that internal
locus of control has positive impact and external locus of control has negative impact on the
academic performance of students. We collected primary data through interviews and
questionnaires. The data was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. We used statistical tools
to analyze the collected data. From our analysis, we found that 17 students have internal locus of
control while 8 have external locus of control. The finding of our research related to first
hypothesis shows that there is no consistency in the improvement of the performance of the
internal LOC student. So the first hypothesis is partly accepted. The next finding which is related
to second hypothesis highlights that the performance of the students having external LOC is
decreased so the second hypothesis is proved. The report concludes that there is a need for
understanding the type of locus of control among the students which shapes students
performance.
Keywords: Locus of Control (internal and external), academic performance

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