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Learning and Individual Differences 27 (2013) 163166

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Learning and Individual Differences


journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif

Implicit theories of intelligence and academic locus of control as


predictors of studying behaviour
Kate Bodill, Lynne D. Roberts
Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Curtin University, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Dweck's social-cognitive approach to implicit theories of intelligence posits that entity beliefs and incremental
Received 24 September 2011 beliefs are associated with, and precede the development of, external and internal locus of control respectively.
Received in revised form 2 July 2012 To date, this proposition underlying the theory has not been adequately tested. An online questionnaire including
Accepted 28 August 2013
measures of implicit intelligence beliefs, academic locus of control and hours studying per week was completed
by 94 Australian university students. Multiple regression analysis supported the posited relationship between
Keywords:
Dweck
entity beliefs and external locus of control, but not that between incremental beliefs and internal locus of control.
Locus of control While providing partial support for Dweck's proposition, further longitudinal testing is required to determine
Implicit theories of intelligence causal ordering. A second multiple regression indicated that academic locus of control was a signicant predictor
Academic effort of hours studying per week, but implicit theories of intelligence were not, suggesting that locus of control beliefs
University students are the more appropriate target of efforts at improving academic effort.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Originally, Dweck and Leggett (1988) proposed that people believe
in either an incremental theory of intelligence or an entity theory of in-
Individuals have their own lay or implicit theories about psycholog- telligence and conceptualised the two sets of beliefs as belonging on op-
ical concepts such as intelligence that inuence the way people view posite ends of a continuum. More recent research by Hong, Chui, Dweck,
themselves and others (Heider, 1958), providing a framework when Lin, and Wan (1999) suggests that people can hold both entity and in-
attempting to explain human actions (Dweck, Chiu, & Hong, 1995). cremental beliefs simultaneously. Entity and incremental beliefs are
However, because theories are often hidden or poorly articulated, it is moderately negatively correlated (r = .35 to .55; Abd-El-Fattah &
sometimes difcult to identify the effect they have on different life do- Yates, 2006; Dupeyrat & Marin, 2005) suggesting that they are sepa-
mains (Dweck et al., 1995). rate, yet correlated constructs, rather than two ends of a continuum.
A dominant social-cognitive approach to the study of implicit theo- In theorising about implicit theories of intelligence Dweck et al.
ries of intelligence is that developed by Dweck and colleagues (Dweck, (1995) posited that implicit beliefs about intelligence are associated
1986, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Dweck et al., 1995). This approach with locus of control. Locus of control refers to whether an individual at-
identied two types of implicit beliefs about intelligence: entity beliefs tributes events and outcomes to external or internal inuences (Cooper,
and incremental beliefs. People who endorse an entity theory of intelli- Burger, & Good, 1981). People with an internal locus of control believe
gence believe that intelligence is a xed ability and tend to adopt perfor- that outcomes arise from effort and therefore view their actions to be in-
mance goals with the aim of gaining approval from outsiders. They uential over life outcomes (Cooper et al., 1981). Conversely, individ-
believe that if effort is required to achieve a goal, that this is indicative uals with an external locus of control believe that the environment
of limited ability and therefore seek challenges that are fairly easy and and situational factors are responsible for life outcomes and are likely
require less effort to ensure they can perform well in light of others to attribute success or failure to chance or unfavourable circumstances,
(Dweck, 1999). Conversely, people who endorse an incremental theory rather than to lack of effort (Cooper et al., 1981).
of intelligence believe that intelligence is malleable and can be im- Locus of control can be measured across domains, or within specic
proved. They set mastery goals which require the learning of new skills domains to predict different social behaviours and psychological states,
in order to increase competence and seek challenging tasks based on the including academic task persistence (Trice, Ogden, Stevens, & Booth,
belief in effort (Dweck, 1999). 1987). Academic locus of control refers to an individual's perceived con-
trol over academic achievement, with internal academic locus of control
indicating that the individual believes effort is a requirement for aca-
Corresponding author at: School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin Health
Innovation Research Institute, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845,
demic success (Trice et al., 1987). Dweck and Leggett (1988) posited
Australia. Tel.: +61 8 9266 7183; fax: +61 8 9266 2464. that entity beliefs about intelligence are associated with external and in-
E-mail address: Lynne.Roberts@curtin.edu.au (L.D. Roberts). cremental beliefs with internal locus of control.

1041-6080/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.08.001
164 K. Bodill, L.D. Roberts / Learning and Individual Differences 27 (2013) 163166

Dweck et al. (1995) further posited that implicit beliefs about intel- implicit theories of intelligence precede locus of control, then implicit
ligence precede the development of locus of control. While both relate to theories of intelligence should be a distal predictor and locus of control
perceptions of control over important life domains (Dweck & Leggett, a proximal predictor of study behaviour, with locus of control the stron-
1988) implicit beliefs relate to perceptions of control over intelligence, ger predictor of study behaviour.
whereas locus of control relates to perceptions of control over events
and outcomes. Dweck and Leggett (1988) posited that people who 2. Method
hold entity beliefs are likely to have trouble perceiving control over in-
telligence and therefore negative outcomes in associated areas (such as 2.1. Participants
academic failure) are viewed to be out of their control, representing an
external locus of control. Conversely, individuals who hold incremental A snowball sampling method through Facebook and inviting stu-
beliefs about intelligence will view outcomes as under their control and dents on campus to participate in the research was utilised to recruit a
interpret outcomes from an internal locus of control perspective. Con- convenience sample of 102 university students enrolled across a range
trary to this Graham (1995) suggested that the evidence is unclear as of faculties at a Western Australian university. Eight cases were re-
to whether control attributions are guided by implicit theories of intel- moved from the initial sample due to incomplete data (missing more
ligence, or if past experiences of academic failures promote the endorse- than 10%), leaving 94 participants remaining in the sample for analysis.
ment of an entity view. Participants were predominantly female (69.1%), full-time (87.2%)
There is a dearth of published empirical research regarding the rela- students with a mean age of 20.8 years (SD = 2.3 years). Prior to
tionship between implicit theories of intelligence and locus of control. conducting the research, an a-priori power analysis was conducted. In
Only one published study could be located that has directly assessed order to detect a medium size effect, with a power of .80 at a signicance
the relationship between the two constructs, reporting a signicant level of .05, 91 participants were required. The nal sample size of 94
positive relationship between incremental beliefs and internal locus of participants meets this requirement.
control, but with neither correlation coefcient nor effect size reported
(Dweck et al., 1995). The implicit theory measure used in this study 2.2. Measures
consisted of three items reecting entity statements only and as such
does not provide an adequate test of the proposition that implicit theo- An online questionnaire was developed consisting of measures of
ries of intelligence are associated with locus of control. implicit theories of intelligence, academic locus of control and single
Academic task persistence (effort) is a core domain of relevance to item measures of age, gender, faculty, study status (part-time or full-
intelligence. According to Dweck and Leggett (1988) individuals who time) and effort (hours spent studying per week).
hold entity beliefs exert less effort to produce academic success and
where they believe their intellectual ability is low, become helpless 2.2.1. Implicit Theory of Intelligence Scale (ITIS)
when faced with academic failures and consequently withdraw effort The ITIS is a self-report measure comprising seven entity and seven
to save face. Conversely, individuals who endorse an incremental theory incremental items representing beliefs about intelligence (Abd-El-
are concerned with the processes involved in mastering challenging Fattah & Yates, 2006). Example items are You are born with a xed
tasks and may attribute unfavourable outcomes to poor strategy or amount of intelligence (entity subscale) and Good preparation before
lack of effort, rather than ability (Grant & Dweck, 2003). They are there- performing a task is a way to develop your intelligence (incremental
fore more likely to persevere when faced with negative feedback scale). Participants were required to respond to the items according to
(Dweck & Leggett, 1988). One study to date has reported that entity be- a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly
liefs were signicantly negatively correlated with effort (r = .23), agree). Previous research has suggested that the measure consists of
operationalised as the number of homework activities completed in two factors representing entity and incremental beliefs, both with ac-
the academic year (Dupeyrat & Marin, 2005). ceptable reliability (Cronbach's alpha above .75) and demonstrating dis-
Locus of control has also been associated with effort, with internal criminant validity (r = .35; Abd-El-Fattah & Yates, 2006). In the
locus of control associated with greater effort. Based on a meta- current sample, the internal reliability was adequate (Cronbach's
analysis of 75 studies (Findley & Cooper, 1983) the effect size is small, alpha = .70 incremental and .65 entity). Scores on the entity and incre-
suggesting that academic performance is multiply determined, with mental subscales of the ITIS have a possible range from 7 to 28 with
other variables also playing an important role. No study to date has higher scores reecting a stronger agreement with the statements on
attempted to examine whether Dweck's implicit theories of intelligence each of the subscales.
or academic locus of control can better predict effort within a university
setting. 2.2.2. Academic Locus of Control Scale (ALCS)
The ALCS is a 28 item truefalse scale measuring perceptions of con-
1.1. Current study trol over academic outcomes (Trice, 1985). Items were written to reect
Rotter's IE scale within the specic domain of academic effort within
The current study has two main aims. The rst aim is to test Dweck college. Individual scores are calculated by summing the number of ex-
and Leggett's (1988) theoretical proposition that implicit theories of in- ternally answered items and can range from 0 through to 28. Higher
telligence and ALC are related, a proposition that has not been fully test- scores are indicative of a more external locus of control over academic
ed to date. Gender will be controlled for in this analysis as previous outcomes. Example items are What I learn is more determined by col-
research suggests that females are more likely than males to hold entity lege and course requirement than by what I want to learn and Study-
beliefs of intelligence (Pepi, Faria, & Alesi, 2006) and internal locus of ing every day is important (reverse coded). Higher scores convey
control (Cooper et al., 1981). It is hypothesised that incremental beliefs external perceptions of control over academic outcomes, with lower
will be correlated with internal locus of control and entity beliefs with scores conveying internal perceptions that academic success requires
external locus of control. personal effort.
The second aim is to determine whether implicit theories of intelli- Previous research suggests the ALCS has acceptable internal consis-
gence or academic locus of control are better predictors of academic ef- tency (Cronbach's alpha = .70), good testretest reliability over a ve
fort, operationalised as the number of hours spent studying per week. week interval (r = .92; Trice, 1985), is not associated with socially de-
The mode of study (full time or part time) will be controlled for as sirable responding, and has adequate construct validity with Rotter's
this is likely to affect the number of hours an individual would spend IE scale (r = .50, Trice, 1985). In the current sample the scale had ac-
studying per week. If, as proposed by Dweck and Leggett (1988), ceptable reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .72).
K. Bodill, L.D. Roberts / Learning and Individual Differences 27 (2013) 163166 165

2.3. Procedure Table 2


Unstandardised (B) and standardised () regression coefcients and squared semipartial
(or part) correlations (sr2) for each predictor in a multiple regression model predicting
Prior to commencing data collection, ethics approval was academic locus of control.
obtained. The online questionnaire was developed and hosted on
SurveyMonkey.com. Two versions of the questionnaire were created, Variable B [95% CI] sr2

with the ITIS and ALCS counter-balanced to remove the inuence of Entity .400 [.126, .674] .300 .081
order effects. As an incentive for participation, entry into a prize draw Incremental .122 [.423, .497] .083 .007
for a $50 AUD iTunes gift voucher was offered. The questionnaire Note. N = 94. CI = condence interval.
remained available for 50 days. After this time the survey was removed. p b .01.
A preliminary inspection of the data using Missing Values Analysis was
conducted to determine the extent of missing data. Four missing data
points were replaced using mean substitution. study mode accounted for a signicant 3.5% of the variance in hours
spent studying per week with academic locus of control scores account-
3. Results and discussion ing for a further signicant 18.2%. Entity and incremental scores did not
account for signicant variance in hours studying per week.
Descriptive statistics and correlations between key variables are The results from the rst multiple regression analysis partially sup-
presented in Table 1. The proposed control variables for the analysis ported Dweck and Leggett's (1988) proposition that implicit theories
were gender and study mode. As gender was not signicantly associat- of intelligence and locus of control are associated. Entity scores were
ed with the other variables it was dropped from further analyses. Mode signicantly positively associated with academic locus of control scores,
of study was retained for the second regression analysis. The assump- demonstrating the association between entity beliefs and an external
tions underlying multiple regression analysis were tested. Hours of academic locus of control. However, there was no support for the pre-
study was transformed with a logarithm transformation due to its sub- dicted association between incremental beliefs and an internal locus
stantial positive skewness. Two univariate outliers were brought in clos- of control. As the current research utilised a cross sectional research de-
er to the distribution. sign, the causal direction between the constructs was unable to be test-
A multiple regression analysis was utilised to test Dweck and Leggett's ed. Future longitudinal research is required to determine whether the
(1988) theoretical proposition that implicit theories of intelligence and development of implicit theories do in fact precede locus of control.
academic locus of control are related. Total scores on the entity and in- The results of the second hierarchical multiple regression analysis
cremental scales from the ITI scale were entered simultaneously into suggest that while neither incremental nor entity beliefs are directly as-
the multiple regression model as predictors with ALCS scores as the crite- sociated with academic effort, entity beliefs are associated with external
rion variable. In combination, entity and incremental scores accounted academic locus of control, which in turn was found to be a signicant
for a signicant 11.2% of the variance in ALCS scores, R2 = .112, adjusted predictor of hours studied per week. One possible reason for these nd-
R2 = .092, F (2, 91) = 5.72, p = .005 (small to medium effect size). The ings is that academic locus of control measures are specically designed
unstandardised (B) and standardised () regression coefcients, and to predict studying behaviour within the academic domain (Trice et al.,
squared semipartial correlations (sr2) for each predictor are presented 1987), whereas implicit theories of intelligence measures are based on
in Table 2. Entity scores accounted for a signicant 8.1% of unique vari- the broader domain of intelligence.
ance in ALCS scores with incremental scores not accounting for any sig- Another possible reason for the lack of association found between im-
nicant variance. plicit theories of intelligence and hours spent studying is the use of a uni-
A hierarchical multiple regression analysis with hours of study as the versity student sample. University students have an average IQ above
criterion variable was conducted to test whether implicit theories of in- that of the general population and are generally highly motivated to per-
telligence or academic locus of control were better predictors of aca- form well in order to produce academic success (Siegle, Rubenstein,
demic effort. The control variable, study mode, was entered in step 1 Pollard, & Romey, 2010). Dweck and Leggett (1988) posited that individ-
and accounted for a signicant 7.8% of the variance in hours of study uals who endorse an entity theory of intelligence will only exert less ef-
R2 = .078, F (1, 92) = 7.76, p = .006. Entity, incremental and ALCS fort if low intellectual ability is perceived. If university students believe
scores were entered as predictors in step 2 and accounted for an addi- that they are highly competent, holding an entity view of intelligence
tional 22.3% of variance in hours of study, R2 = .223, F (3, 89) = may neither facilitate nor hinder the amount of effort exerted in academ-
9.47, p b .001. In combination the predictors were able to account for ic studies. It is possible that implicit beliefs act as moderators, rather than
30.1% of the variance in hours of study, R2 = .301, adjusted R2 = .269, direct predictors, of studying behaviour. Further disentanglement of ef-
F (4, 89) = 9.477, p b .001 (medium to large effect size). The fort and ability when examining relationships between implicit theories,
unstandardised (B) and standardised () regression coefcients and locus of control and academic outcomes is desirable.
squared semipartial correlations (sr2) for each predictor on each step Overall, the results obtained suggest that academic locus of control is
of the hierarchical MRA are presented in Table 3. In the nal model, directly associated with studying behaviour in university students,

Table 1 Table 3
Correlation matrix of key variables. Unstandardised (B) and standardised () regression coefcients, and squared semipartial
(or part) correlations (sr2) for each predictor on each step of the hierarchical MRA
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 predicting hours of study.
1. Entity 16.51 3.20
Variable B [95% CI] sr2
2. Incremental 21.94 2.91 .30
3. ALCS 13.68 4.10 .33 .17 Step 1
4. Hours studya 1.01 0.34 .08 .16 .49 Study mode .279 [.080, .478] .279 .078
5. Study modeb .06 .12 .20 .24 Step 2
6. Genderc .11 .11 .07 .13 .02 Study mode .195 [.012, .378] .195 .035
Entity .006 [.014, .027] .061 .003
Notes: N = 94.
a Incremental .013 [.009, .034] .112 .011
Transformed variable.
b ALCS .037 [.052, .022] .467 .182
Part-time coded as 0 and full-time coded as 1.
c
Male coded as 1 and female as = 0. Note. N = 94. CI = condence interval.
Correlation signicant at p b .01 (2-tailed). p b .01.
Correlation signicant at p b .05 (2-tailed). p b .05.
166 K. Bodill, L.D. Roberts / Learning and Individual Differences 27 (2013) 163166

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