Estrutura interna e fidedignidade das escalas de locus de controle: uma scoping review

Abstract

Locus of control refers to how individuals perceive control in their lives and based on this perception, guides the motivation for their action, which can be internal or external. The locus of control, throughout more than 50 years of research, proved to be useful as a predictor attribute of individual differences and has motivated the construction of different scales for both, generalized and specific control expectations. However, most of these scales were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s using less advanced statistical methods than today, which may have generated inconsistent replication results of validity evidence regarding the internal structure of these instruments. The aim of this study was, from a scoping review, to investigate these psychometric properties of scales with generalized control expectations for adults. Forty-seven studies were selected that included analyzes of three scales: Rotter's I-E Scale (1966), Levenson's I-P-C Scale (1973; 1974), and Oviedo Locus of Control Scale from Suárez-Álvarez et al. (2016). The results pointed out gaps in the I-E and I-P-C scales, as well as recommendations of new studies with the Oviedo Locus of Control Scale. Study limitations and suggestions for further investigations are discussed.