Internal-External Control and Independence of Judgment in Course Evaluations Among College Students
Rotter's internal-external control theory as well as some recent experimental research on reactions to failure and negative evaluations suggests that externals should react differ ently from internals to receiving poor grades in a college course. Externals were expected to downgrade the course and the fairness of examinations when asked to report their attitudes towards the course. Internals and externals who were receiving good grades were not expected to differ. The present field-correlational study found support for these predictions.