Achievement motivation, locus of control, and academic achievement behavior'

Charles 6. Schultz,^ Tr'mity College and Michael Pomerantz, Universiiy of Corinecticuf

Recently Wolk and DuCette (1973) found that locus of control mediates the effects of achievement motivation on achievement behavior. Resultant achievement motivation correlated positively with the choice and performance of achievement tasks only for persons characterized as internals on Rotter's (1966) I-E Scale. Similar relationships were not obtained for externals or for the sample as a whole. The mediating status of the locus of control variable was underscored by Wolk and DuCette's finding that it and resultant achievement motivation were independent. The compelling imphcation from these data is that there are two distinct groups of need achievement persons: internals who accept responsibility for their acts and for whom achievement tasks are attractive as Atkinson's (1964) theory of achievement motivation would predict, and externals who attribute the outcomes of their acts to environmental sources and for whom achievement tasks hold no particular attraction. Weiner (1972) poses a contrasting and more complex mediating function for the locus of control variable in his attribution explanation of achievement behavior. According to this view, locus of control is not a unitary variable. Internal ascriptions of causality for events which may result in success or in failure can be based on the constant, stable factor of ability or the fluctuating, unstable factor of effort. Thus, there are four internal attribution conditions: success to ability, success to effort, failure
1. The authors are grateful to John Battle and Ken Padach for their assistance in the conduct of the research and to Gary Jacolson and Ralph Walde for their assistance in the analyses of the data. The authors, of course, are solely responsible for any errors. They are also indebted to Charles Clock, Edward Bierman, and Francis Whittle of the West Hartford School District for their cooperation. This research was supported, in part, by a grant from Trinity College. 2. Requests for reprints should be sent to Charles B. Schtdtz, Trinity College, Department of Education, 300 Summit Street, Hartford, Connecticut 06106.

Achievement and locus of control

39

to lack of ability, and failure to lack of effort. An important feature of the attribution approach is that these four internal conditions, far from being independent of achievement needs, are related to them on the one hand and to achievement behavior on the other. It is the attribution view (e.g., Weiner, 1972) that persons with high achievement needs attribute success to the internal factors of ability and effort. Accordingly they experience greater pride in success and, therefore, are more attracted to such activities on future occasions than persons low in achievement needs who attribute success to external factors. When persons with high need achievement fail, the situation apparently is less clearcut. They attribute failure to a lack of effort, an unstable, internal factor. The effect of this attribution is to raise two opposing tendencies toward the achievement task. One is inhibitive due to the shame experienced with failure. The other tendency is facilitative due to the maintenance of a relatively high expectation of success following failure. It is assumed that attribution of failure to an unstable factor (e.g., lack of effort) does not lower expectations of success. Since persons with high achievement needs experience one inhibitive and one facilitative tendeney after failure, presumably they are ambivalent about achievement activities. For their part, persons with low achievement needs attribute failure to lack of ability which is associated with two inhibitive tendencies, shame due to failure and the expectation of future failures. The latter tendency is based on the assumption that attribution of failure to stable factors (e.g., lack of ability) lowers or maintains low expectancies. Since persons with low achievement needs experience only inhibitive tendencies after failure, presumably they avoid achievement activities. Based on this rationale, the attribution approach imphes a set of relations between achievement needs and attributions of causality and between attributions of causality and achievement behavior. Achievement motivation is positively related to the attribution of success to ability and to effort and the attribution of failure to lack of effort. Achievement needs are inversely related to the attribution of failure to lack of abihty. Weiner and Potepan (1970) obtained support for these propositions; however, the positive relationships between achievement needs and

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Schultz and Pomerantz

the attribution of success and failure to effort were marginal at best. The attribution approach also implies a set of relations between attributions of causality and the attractiveness of achievement activities. Both the attribution of success to ability and to effort are positively related to achievement activity. Attribution of failure to lack of ability is negatively related to achievement activity and, because of the counter tendencies generated by attribution of failure to lack of effort, that factor is presumably unrelated to achievement activity. Thus, the two approaches to the mediating function of locus of control differ in several respects. According to Wolk and DuCette (1973), achievement needs and locus of control are unrelated; locus of control mediates the effects of achievement motivation on achievement behavior by distinguishing those high need achievers who find achievement activities attractive (internals ) from those who do not (externals). According to Weiner (1972), locus of control and achievement needs are related in a relatively complex pattern; the mediating function of locus of control resides in its relationship to achievement motivation on the one hand and achieveTnent behavior on the other. An initial step toward resolving these contrasting views of the two variables, locus of control and achievement motivation, is replicating the findings on which they are based. The present investigation was designed to replicate and to extend the earlier works. The Wolk and DuCette (1973) study was replicated with the following modifications. The Resultant Achievement Motivation Scale (Mehrabian, 1969) used by Wolk and DuCette (1973) with some misgivings (Wolk & DuCette, 1971) was supplemented with Prestatie Motivatie Test (Hermans, 1970) which holds promise as an objective measure of achievement motivation (Hermans, 1970; Schultz & Pomerantz, 1974). In addition, the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Crandall, 1965) was substituted for a shortened version of Rotter's (1966) I-E Scale because it is a specific measure of locus of control for achievement tasks similar to those encountered in schools by subjects in the present investigation. The Weiner and Potepan (1970) study was replicated in part and was extended. The relationships between achievement needs and causal ascriptions were obtained, replicating a portion of Weiner and Potepan's (1970) investigation. In addition, rela-

Achievement and locus of control

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tionships were obtained between causal ascriptions and measures of preference for and performance of achievement tasks. Finally, the important assumption of the attribution approach that attribution of success to stable factors is positively related to expectancy of success and attribution of failure to stable factors is negatively related to expectancy of success was tested.
METHOD

The subjects were 93 male ninth-graders who were randomly selected from two suburban jimior high schools. Seven tests were administered in two separate one-hour sessions to groups of approximately 25 subjects. These tests as well as the modifications made to bring them closer to the reading and experiential level of ninth graders have been described elsewhere (Schultz & Pomerantz, 1974). Briefly, the measures of achievement needs were Mehrabian's (1969) Resultant Achievement Motivation Scale (RAM) and Hermans' (1970) Prestatie Motivatie Test (PMT). Fear of failure was assessed by the debilitative scale of Alpert and Haber's (1960) Achievement Anxiety Test (AAT). The Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire (IAR) (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Crandall, 1965) was used as a measure of locus of control. Internals and externals were defined by the 30 highest and 30 lowest scores respectively on the IAR. One advantage of the IAR is that it can be partitioned into success and failure subscales. Furthermore, some items refer to effort and others to ability.* Thus, the scale contains four subscales which represent the four internal attributions discussed above. The subjects also rated four English and three mathematics items from the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) for their attractiveness and estimated their chances of success on these same items. The difficulty level of the items used in the analyses reported here is in the moderate range; 45 percent to 55 percent of the students in the junior high schools from which the subjects were drawn answered them correctly. Performance of academic achievement tasks was assessed by total scores on the CTBS, language arts and mathematics part-scores on the CTBS, and by gradepoint averages. The personality scales were administered via 35mm. slides. Subjects read each item projected on a screen as they listened to a tape3. Weiner (e.g., Weiner & Potepan, 1970) divided his adult version of the IAR into subscales of ability and effort or motivation. Crandall categorized all items other than those which reflect effort as simply undifferentiated, since diese items may refer to more than ability (personal communication). Crandall's subscales were employed in the present analyses with Ihe labels used by Weiner and Potepan for the sake of consistency.

Schultz and Pomerantz

recorded reading of the item by the experimenter. The timing of the items was determined by pilot work at a different junior high school and was controlled by an audio-synchronizer device.
RESULTS

Achievement motivation was correlated with achievement behavior for three groups: all subjects, internals, and externals. The achievement behaviors were similar to those used by Wolk and DuCette (1973). They included estimates of probability of success and task preferences for moderately difficult items on the CTBS, grades for classroom work, and scores on verbal and quantitative standardized achievement tests. The results are summarized in Table 1. The present study failed to replicate Wolk and DuCette's (1973) findings in at least four respects. Achievement motivation was significantly and quite substantially related to estimates of the probability of success and to performance of achievement tasks for the complete sample. The strength of these correlations suggests that little is to be gained by using locus of control as a moderator variable (Zedeck, Cranny, Vale, & Smith, 1971). More important, the correlations between achievement motivation and achievement behaviors did not differ significantly in any of the contrasts between the internal and external subgroups. In addition, corresponding regression coefficients for the internal and external subgroups were compared. None of these contrasts was significant. Correlations between achievement motivation and achievement behaviors for externals in the present study were significant in some cases and in general were stronger than Wolk and DuCette's (1973), who obtained several negative trends. According to these findings, there is httle support for restricting the apphcability of achievement motivation notions to internals. Finally, unlike Wolk and DuCette (1973), who reported no relation between achievement motivation and locus of control, in the present study the correlation was modest and significant in the case of the RAM (r = .29, df = 91, p < .01) and more substantial using the PMT-AAT (r = .52, df = 91,p<.001). Although Mehrabian's (1969) achievement motivation scale was designed as a resultant measure of the motive to succeed minus the motive to avoid failure, Weiner and Potepan (1970) suspect that, in actuality, it may reflect only success tendencies.

43

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Accordingly, they devised a second resultant measxire by subtracting test anxiety scores from the RAM. Both the original version of the RAM and the resultant of the RAM minus test anxiety were correlated with the various subscales of the IAR. The same procedure was used in the present study with the addition of a third measure of resultant achievement motivation based on the PMT minus the debilitating scale of the AAT (Table 2). Weiner and Potepan's (1970) results were replicated as far as the correlations between achievement motivation and attribution of success are concerned. Indeed, the relationships were considerably stronger in the present study particularly when the PMT was used as a measure of achievement motivation. An important feature of the present findings is the relatively strong correlation between achievement needs and attribution of success to effort. The attribution model predicts this relationship, but Weiner and Potepan's (1970) findings were only marginal. In addition to the correlations between measures of achievement motivation and internal causal ascriptions, partial correlations were also computed in which the internal ascriptions not serving as dependent variables were controlled (see Table 2). After removing the effects of the other internal causal ascriptions, the relationship between achievement motivation and the attribution of success to ability and, in particular, to effort remains. Attribution of failure to internal factors was unrelated to the RAM and slightly and nonsignificantly (p = .05) related to the PMT. The present findings are similar to those of Weiner and Potepan (1970) in regard to the low correlations between achievement needs and the attribution of failure to lack of effort. The sharpest distinction between the two studies occurs in the failure of the present study to obtain a negative relationship between achievement motivation and attribution of failure to lack of ability. The correlations between the four subscales of the IAR and measures of preference and performance of achievement tasks are presented in Table 3. As implied by the attribution model of achievement behavior, there was a relatively strong correlation between both the ability and effort attributions for success and the preference for achievement tasks and performance of them whether measured by a standardized achievement test or by teachers' ratings of learners' performance. However, neither the

Achievement and locus of control

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Table 2. Correlations and partial correlations of resultant achievement motivation with internal causal ascriptions (N = 93).
Measure of resultant achievement motivation Internal ascriptions Success to ability Scccess to effort Totol internol for Failure to lack of Failure to lack of Total internal for r .36 * * .40 *** .44 .02 -.06 -.02 RAM r,' .24' 29** -.08 -.08 RAM-AAT r .34*** .45*** .47*** .00 -.01 .00 .21 .36*** -.11 -.02 r .50*** .55*** .62*** .12 .13 .16 PMT-AAT r/ .35** .43*** -.06 .12

success obility effort failure

* p < .05.
**p<.01. ***p<.001. ^ Correlation between RAM ond each internal causal ascription with the effects of the remaining causal ascriptions partialed out. ^ Correlation between RAM-AAT and each internal causal ascription with the effects of the remaining causal ascriptions portialed out. '^ Correlation between PMT-AAT and each internal causal ascription with the effects of the remaining causal ascriptions partialed out.

attribution of success to ability nor to effort appear to be strongly related to preference for academic achievement tasks nor performance of them when the effects of achievement motivation and the other internal causal ascriptions were removed. Attribution of failure to lack of effort was unrelated to the preference for or performance of achievement tasks, as expected. However, the attribution of failure to lack of ability was assumed to be negatively related to preference for achievement tasks. No such relationship was obtained. Although there were weak relationships between internal ascriptions and achievement, there were relatively strong relationships between achievement motivation and academic achievement when the effects of the fovir internal ascriptions were removed. The partial correlations were as follows: PMT-AAT and GPA = .40, p < .001; PMT-AAT and CTBS = .23, p < .05; RAM and CPA = .38, p < .01; RAM and CTBS = .27, p < .05; RAMAAT and CPA = .38, p < .001; and RAM-AAT and CTBS = .40, p < .001. Finally, two resultant stability scores were computed from the subscales of the IAR as follows: Resultant Stability Score for Success (RSSS) = Attribution of success to ability - Attribution of success to effort -f 100.

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Table 3. Correlations and partial correlations of internal causal asscriptions with achievement activities (N = 93).
Internal causal ascriptions Success to ability
r f/

Achievement activity Task preference CTBS-totol Grode-point average

Success to effort r .28** .35** .44** r. .20 .16 .20

Failure to lack of ability

r fp

Failure to lack of effort r -.09 .00 -.14 r. -.10 -.01 .15

.27' .35** .47**

.20 .17 .26*

-.02 .10 .19

-.09 .03 .07

* p < .05.
**P<.01. ^ Partial correlations between achievement activities and internal causal ascriptions with the effects of achievement motivation and the remaining internal ascriptions controlled. The RAM was used as the measure of achievement motivation. The PMT-AAT and RAM-AAT resulted in similar but slightly smaller partial correlations.

Resultant Stability Score for Failure (RSSF) = Attribution of failure to lack of ability - Attribution of failure to lack of effort + 100. These resultant scores were used to test the assumption that persons who attribute success on academic tasks to stable factors (i.e., to ability rather than effort) will approach similar academic tasks with relatively high expectations of success and that persons who attribute failure to stable factors will approach achievement tasks with relatively low expectancies of success. Neither assumption was supported by the present findings. The RSSS was unrelated to ratings of probability of success (r = .04) and the RSSF was positively but not reliably related to ratings of probability of success (r = .18).
DISCUSSION

Wolk and DuCette (1973) were interested in increasing the consistency with which achievement needs were found to be related to achievement behavior by identifying the group of high need achievers for whom this relationship would be strongest. Unfortunately, the present failure to replicate their findings suggests that the use of locus of control to separate high need achievers who approach achievement tasks from those who do not may be as susceptible to contrary findings as the original approach to testing achievement motivation theory. Indeed, for the present sample at least, the relationship between achievement

Achievement and locus of control

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needs and achievement behavior for all subjects approximates the correlations Wolk and DnCette (1973) found for internals alone. Moreover, the present study, like others (e.g., Mehrabian, 1968), found that achievement motivation and locus of control were positively correlated. This relationship is not surprising given the cogent analysis of the similarities between achievement motivation theory and control-of-reinforcement theory that Wolk andDuCette (1973) present. The attribution conception of locus of control as a mediating variable received mixed support. The most supportive findings occurred in the event of success. High need achievers tended to attribute success to both internal factors of effort and abihty and, in turn, persons who attributed success internally also tended to undertake achievement tasks. The latter relationship appears to lend support to the attribution explanation of achievement behavior. The former relationship, also consistent with the attribution view, agrees with and complements findings obtained by Weiner and Potepan (1970) and by Cohen, Reid, and Boothroyd (1973) on an Anglicized version of the RAM. Weiner and Potepan (1970) foimd a relatively strong correlation between achievement needs and attribution of success to ability but only a weak correlation between achievement needs and attribution of success to effort. The opposite trend occurred in Cohen, Reid, and Boothroyd's (1973) results. In the present study, both ability and effort factors were significantly related to achievement needs as suggested by the attribution model. This effect was accentuated when the PMT-AAT was used as a measure of resultant achievement motivation. Unfortunately, when the effects of related variables are partialed out, support for the attribution view is weakened. Although modest relationships between achievement motivation and internal ascriptions for success remain, in some cases they are relatively small and in one case not significant. Moreover, there appears to be only a slight relationship between either the ascription of success to ability or to effort and the preference for or performance of academic achievement tasks once the effects of achievement motivation and the remaining internal ascriptions are controlled. The present analyses using correlations or partial correlations

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clearly suggest that locus of control serves no mediating function in the event of failure. The findings in regard to the ascription of failure to internal factors, particularly to effort, pose several problems for the attribution view. First, there is substantial evidence from the present study and from others (Cohen, Reid, & Boothroyd, 1973; Reid & Cohen, 1973; Weiner & Potepan, 1970) that achievement needs are unrelated to the ascription of failure to lack of effort. These findings, which are inconsistent with the attribution model, were obtained from responses to the hypothetical situations used on self-report measures. Weiner and Kukla (1970) found that over a series of trials which induced failure, high need achievers tended to rate their effort lower than low need achievers. Thus, if a relationship between achievement needs and attribution of failure to lack of effort does exist, it may be detectable only after actual performance on an achievement task and, perhaps, only after sustained failure. It is uncertain whether the present results reflect difficulties in measuring one's attribution of failure to lack of effort or whether they point to weaknesses in the model. Second, the attribution approach is unclear with respect to the finding that attribution of failure to lack of effort is unrelated to achievement activities. On the one hand, the finding is consistent with the notion implied by attribution theory that the ascription of failure to lack of effort simultaneously arouses approach and avoidance tendencies. As a result of these counter tendencies, persons who attribute failure to lack of effort are just as likely to undertake achievement activities as they are to ignore or avoid them. On the other hand, the findings are inconsistent with the attribution explanation of high need achievers' persistence after failure. This explanation rests on the assumption that persons who attribute failure to lack of effort will approach achievement activities. According to Weiner (1972), "Individuals high in resultant achievement needs ascribe failure to lack of effort. Thus, their expectancy of success following failure remains relatively high, and they continue striving for the goal" (p. 389). Weiner's explanation takes into account the facilitative tendency of attributing failure to an unstable factor which maintains high expectancies, but it ignores the inhibitive tendency of attributing failure to an internal factor which arouses feelings of shame. The failure to obtain a correlation between

Achievement and locus of control

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attribution of failure to effort and achievement activities highlights the difficulty of the attribution view in this respect. Finally, the problem with the attribution explanation of persistence after failure is further comphcated by the finding that persons who attribute failure to unstable rather than stable factors are no more likely to have lower estimates of success on similar tasks than persons who make the opposite attributions. The correlations between achievement motivation and attribution of failure to lack of ability were neghgible in contrast to the negative correlations obtained by Cohen, Reid, and Boothroyd (1973) and Weiner and Potepan (1970) and to predictions based on the attribution approach. However, the failure to support the attribution view in this respect is not imique. Weiner and Kukla (1970) found that high need achievers tend to attribute failure to lack of ability. Thus the present results suggest that Weiner and Potepan's (1970) and Cohen, Reid, and Boothroyd's (1973) findings in regard to the attribution of failure to lack of ability, though consistent with the theory, are not definitive. The difficulty may lie as much in the ambiguity of the abihty subscale, or at least in the failure portion of it, as in weaknesses in the theory. Moreover, attribution of failure to lack of ability was not negatively related to achievement activity. Only a small, nonsignificant negative correlation was obtained for preferences for achievement tasks. In sum, there appears to be little evidence to suggest that the effects of achievement motivation on achievement behavior are mediated by the attribution of failure to lack of ability or, as described above, to the lack of effort. In spite of the inconsistencies in the relatively direct attempts to substantiate achievement motivation theory (e.g., Weinstein, 1969), the present findings argue for just such an approach. At least they suggest that alternatives which posit a mediating function for locus of control are no more parsimonious and are themselves fraught with inconsistencies in evidence. The clearest statement in the present findings is that persons with high achievement needs, as assessed by two objective measures, prefer intermediate risks and perform better on academic achievement tasks than persons with low achievement needs, a conclusion which is entirely consistent with Atkinson's (1964) theory. This conclusion is underscored by the finding that these relationships re-

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Schultz and Pomerantz

mained relatively strong after the effects of the internal ascriptions were eliminated.
SUMMARY

Two views of locus of control as a mediator of the effects of achievement motivation on achievement behavior were examined. Measures of achievement motivation, locus of control, and the preference for and performance of achievement tasks were obtained from 93 male ninth-graders. Achievement motivation was as strongly related to achievement activities for the entire sample as it was for internals alone. Thus, locus of control did not distinguish high need achievers who prefer achievement activities from those who do not. The mediating function of locus of control implied by attribution theory received partial support. Achievement needs were significantly related to internal attributions of success, which in turn, were related to achievement behaviors. However, no relationship was obtained between achievement needs and internal attributions of failure or between internal attributions of failure and achievement activities.
REFERENCES

Alpert, R., & Haber, R. N. Anxiety in academic achievement situations. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1960, 61, 207-215. Atkinson, J. W. An introduction to motivation. Princeton, N. J.: Van Nostrand, 1964. Cohen, L., Reid, I., & Boothroyd, K. Validation of the Mehrabian need for achievement scale with college of education students. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 1973, 43, 269-278. Crandall, V. C , Katkovsky, W., & Crandall, V. J. Children's beliefs in their own control of reinforcements in intellectual-academic achievement situations. Child Development, 1965, 36, 91-109. Hermans, H. J. M. A questionnaire measure of achievement motivation. Journal of AppUed Psychology, 1970, 54, 353-363. Mehrabian, A. Male and female scales of the tendency to achieve. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1968, 28, 493-502. Mehxabian, A. Measures of achieving tendency. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1969, 29, 445-451. Reid, I., & Cohen, L. Achievement orientation, intellectual achievement responsibility, and the choice between degree and certificate courses in colleges of education. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 1973, 43, 63-66. Rotter, J. B. Ceneralized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 1966, 80 (1, Whole No. 609). Schultz, C. B., & Pomerantz, M. Some problems in the application of achievement motivation to education: The assessment of motive to succeed and probability of success. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1974, 66, 599-608. Weiner, B. Theories of motivation. Chicago: Markham, 1972. Weiner, B., & Kukla, A. An attribution analysis of achievement motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, 15, 1-20. Weiner, B., & Potepan, P. A. Personality characteristics and affective reactions

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toward exams of superior and failing college students. Journal of Edttcatiorud Psychology, 1970, 61, 144-151. Weinstein, M. S. Achievement motivation and risk preference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1969, 13, 153-172. WoUc, S., & DuCette, J. Locus of control and adiievement motivation: Theoretical overlap and methodological divergence. Psychological Reports, 1971, 29,755-758. Wolk, S., & DuCette, J. The moderating effect of locus of control in relation to achievement motivation variables. Jourruil of Personality, 1973, 41, 59-70. Zedeck, S., Cranny, C. J., Vale, C. A., & Smith, P. C. Comparison of "joint moderators" in three prediction techniques. Journal of Applied Psychology, 1971, 55, 234-240. Manuscript received March 4, 1974.