Locus of control versus situational control

Rotter's I/E scale was administered to 50 students at Algoma University. Scores were rank ordered and counterbalanced for group assignment. The Active group had several choice prior to the experiment (room, list, seating arrangement). The other group, the passive group, were simply informed of their conditions. Subject were tested on a modified Jensen Alternation Board. The subjects attempted to guess which switch would be correct in a pattern. A light was illuminated to indicate a correct guess. Then subjects completed a questionnaire measuring their perceived success, their confidence in guessing, whether correct guesses were due to luck or skill, and whether a pattern was perceived in the guessing task. In the Active group, high internal scores on the Rotter scale correlated with increased confidence ratings (r=.396). Correlations were stronger in the Active group overall (t=3.25, a=0.025). The active group also showed a slightly higher tendency to perceive a pattern (X2=1.33, a=0.025). There were no other statistically significant results.