Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to analyze the gender difference with the locus of control among university teachers. The major objective of this research was to explore gender-based analysis among university teachers regarding the locus of control. All public sector university teachers of Islamabad were the population of this study. A simple random sampling technique was applied in order to select a representative sample from the population. The study sample consisted of 100 teachers (51 males and 49 females) from 5 public sector universities. The researcher developed locus of control instrument consisting of twenty-seven items. For data tabulation and analysis, appropriate statistical tools were used. The analysis of data showed that there was a significant difference exist between locus of control and gender. It may be recommended that awareness programs of internal locus of control should be conducted by the higher authorities in the universities for female educators.

Key Words

Locus of Control, Gender, University Teachers

Introduction

It is really very essential for some people to get support from others, but for some people, they believe that they have power over situations and incidents that might affect their lives. The phenomenon of point of power has come from the word power. According to Oxford Dictionary (2018), the locus is a force to show authority or direct human conduct or the sequence of incidents (Bandura, 1977; Heckhausen, 1977) pointed out this idea that is imagining that some behaviours of people will have specific results; response-consequence anticipation, deed-consequences anticipation, and the level of the association amongst the consequences and reactions. Different uses of the word locus were given by Skinner (1996). We can find more than 100 applications of the word power, but to some extent, they are co-related terminologies. They have ideas like “individual power, power sense, result power, primary power or power, power related to the brain, power over deeds, choice power, anticipation power, information power, and agent power. In reality, the use of these ideas is almost the same. One of the basic and most important theories of the locus was developed by Rotter.

Presently, we see that there has been a change in each field of life around the globe. With the beginning of a new era, communities are involved in solemn and hopeful academic changes. According to Jia, Eslami, and Burlbaw (2006), considering educationists' views and faiths are significant as educationists are deeply connected in different teaching and learning procedures, and they are the one who practically employs academic principles and concepts. Location of power is an idea in psychosomatic writing which is recognized as a point of power. 

The idea of the locus or point of power has been the topic of the investigations. Calculating the point of power has been started since 1957 a scale was made Yeúilyaprak, (1990b). The idea of the point of power comes from the community learning hypothesis, which is considered as the growth of a person's behavior. It is investigated in different ways by psychologists and investigators that in educationists instructions courses. They began to gather strengthening, prizes, and penalties that came from the surroundings from the youth. They are significant motivators in education. These motivators that we collect from the surroundings will be a reason for us to widen anticipation of strengthening or penalty as a consequence of our actions (ùahin, 2008). Awareness of this strengthening and the sense that we get will be an important part in deciding on which side of the growth of the point we are or to which side we are near. As it is realized from the fact, people are amongst two limits or sides as outer power and inner power. It was pointed by Yeúilyaprak (1990a, 2004) that the location where power, that decides good and bad consequences ( penalties and strengthening) in the life of a person, that center is known as point of power by explaining our anticipations as faith to an inner or outer power resource.

The LOC is associated with the realization level of a person's liability as a consequence of their own actions. Liability of incidents as a consequence of their own actions is described as inner power, and liability of incidents as consequences of others, and connecting them to destiny, fortune, and luck is described as outer power. It was reported by SayÕn (2000) that people with inner power are artistic, more efficient in attaining aims. They are more victorious in conditions of education and have good relations with other people. It was pointed by Pannells and Claxton (2008) that people who have the inner LOC have great numbers in varied incidents that lead to pleasure, that is to describe that there can be a connection between being internally powered and pleasure. 

So, the locus is a psychosomatic notion that indicates how powerfully a person thinks he has power over the circumstances and incidents that influence his life. Generally, the role of educators is to assist learners study by passing on information to them and by establishing a condition in which learners can and will study efficiently. The reason for the investigation is to examine the point of power amongst educators at university level, as professors are a very significant element of our culture and learning.

Literature Review

There is a theory in the psychosomatic writing

which is known as the point of power, which is not known by many people. LOC is a person's faith system related to the reasons of his or her understandings and the reasons related to triumph and loss. This idea is generally put into two types; outer and inner. If an individual has inner-oriented power, that individual is likely to achieve success using his capabilities and struggles. An individual who aims to achieve success will work for it. An individual who is outer the locus believes that there are outer factors that have an impact on his life. He thinks luck or fortune plays an important role in his life. An individual who falls in this category will be making fewer struggles to achieve goals. Individuals who have outer locus usually face depression as they have a faith that they have no power over anything in their lives. In other words, we can say that the inner point of power is something positive, and the outer point of power is something negative. There are also variations that cannot be ignored, but psychological investigations have observed that individuals with more inner locus are superior, as they believe in hard work and intimately get good jobs.

Any person's aims, prospects, and societal support and strengthening are used to explain the hypothesis. A human's deeds are presented by his interests, stated in the societal learning hypothesis. The course of manners is usually governed by directions. In provided circumstances, an individual responds to a situation by going through some actions that he has learned will lead to a greater degree of happiness. 

 Studies conducted by Chubb and Fertman (1997) on gender variations in LOC have broad domains. According to different researches, it has been found out that women are more outer point orientated as compared to men. On the opposite side, it was found by Serin et al.;( 2010) that men pupils are greatly inner point oriented. Similarly, it was stated by Manger and Eikeland (2000) that women have more inner point orientated as compared to men. Sarcasm et al.; (2012) reported in their studies that there is a prominent variation amongst the number of inner LOC and outer LOC of women and the number of inner and outer LOC amongst men. The results pointed that the normal number of outer LOC of a woman is low than a man and an inner point of power is higher in a woman. On the opposite side, there were also researches which showed no important variation among 45 educationists, "A Research on Beginner Educationists. " For example, it was found by Yasar (2006) that there was no important variation amongst men and women regarding point of power. 

According to (Baker 1998; Stubbs 2001; Umoh 1991) conducted a study which has been done in the past to show that there is an important association between locus of control and educational accomplishments. This research has this result that people with an inner point of power bring higher accomplishments as compared to people with an outer point of power. Power is basically connected to great dedication. A lot has been discussed about the LOC of potential educators, yet the problems and issues which educators are facing these days are more severe as compared to the past. In addition, educationists are required to have a remarkable scholarly presentation to gain profit from their teaching profession. According to Spector (1982), research on locus is also connected with different institutional variables, like work contentment, enthusiasm, and presentation, on the other hand, there is less research done to find out the understanding of point of power among educationists in the narrow situation. This research highlights and gives a proposal to examine the gender variation with the point of power among university educationists who are teaching in the public sector. 

Rotter (1950) explained LOC as to a degree to which individuals think they are able to overcome incidents impacting them. An individual's point of power could either be inner or outer. Inner is related to an individual's faith that they have authority over their lives while outer is about those individuals who have a faith that outer factors which are related to environment power their life and choices which will not be changed by luck or fortune. Educators with the outer point of power think that everything which happens is due to some outer factors like their follow educators, management, and God's involvement or interference. They do not consider themselves responsible for anything that happens to them. On the other hand, educators with the inner point of power believe that with effort, they can change those factors in their lives which bring negative consequences to their actions. 

According to (Adu & Oshati, 2014; Lee-Kelley, 2006; Littunen & Storhammar, 2000; Senler, 2016), the point of power can be divided into two categories; inner and outer. Inner point of power shows a person's continuous faith in his or her abilities, enthusiasm to bring positive results by efforts and by taking specific relevant actions. He also believes that any unexpected thing can happen amongst a person's actions and accomplishments (Golparvar, 2014; Littunen & Storhammar, 2000). People who have an outer point of power think that the incidents that occur in their lives are guided by outer factors such as fortune, destiny, and others' attitudes or power. Those educators will be likely to see the positive and negative things that occur in their lives as those factors which they cannot power or have no authority on them. According to (Mearns 2009; Williams, 2010; Zimmerman, 2008), people with an outer point of power are inclined to take extreme trouble, stress, and tension with less confidence on them while teaching their students. 

People who have a strong inner point of power think that they have power over whatever occurs in their lives. These educators think that positive and negative things which happen to them are due to the result of their own deeds. The idea of the point of power is divided into inner and outer power or power. Inner point of power is explained as a person's power over his actions and a person's faith that the human being has the power to have authority on everything that happens to him. According to Judge and Bono, (2001b), people who have an inner point of power are successful and enthusiastic. They are capitalist, peacemakers, and the ones who are socially responsible. It is also connected with self-respect and psychological firmness (Loose more & Lam 2004; Judge & Bono, 2001a; Silvester, Anderson-Gough, Anderson & Mohammed, 2002).  People who believe that everything which occurs to them is due to their own actions and behavior are the ones who have an inner point of power. People who have power over their emotions and behavior have those qualities which help them use in a way that is very helpful in getting profitable work. They are good in finding solutions to their problems and tend to work consistently (Jones and George, 2003).

According to Czubaj (2000) educators who have an inner point of power put great effort so that they can solve those issues that decrease their job contentment. However, if they think they are unable to alter it and their job is affecting their lives in a harmful way, such educators prefer either give up their jobs, or start doing any other job which might bring happiness and satisfaction.  According to Toussi and Ghanizadeh (2012), educators' point of power is basically educators' point of view on their duties related to students' behavior and academic achievements towards productive or negative accomplishments. It is the educators' special quality that handles students' behavior in a constructive or unconstructive way. According to (Cheng 1994; Rose & Medway, 1981) educators have no doubt about their actions and tasks performed in the classroom, and the main aim to pay attention to students' behaviour and academic accomplishments (Abdullahi, 2000; Bostic, 2010; Burrell, 1994; Mathur, 2014; Toussi & Ghanizadeh, 2012). According to (Cassidy & Eachus, 2000; Wang, Kick, Fraser, & Burns, 1999), investigating the impacts of educators' point of power in different ways has always been an important field of research for stakeholders. This literature explains that educators' locus is a quantifiable phenomenon that impacts teachers' accomplishments. 

For this reason, the aim of the research study is to look at the gender difference in the variable of locus of control of university teachers.

Research Objectives

1. To measure the dimensions of locus of control among professors at the university level.

2. To analyze the dimensions of locus of control in perspective of gender difference among professors at the university level.




Research Hypothesis

1. There is no significant difference between internal locus of control and gender among professors at the university level.

2. There is no significant difference between external locus of control and gender among professors at the university level.

Research Methodology

This research study was quantitative in nature. All teachers teaching at the university level in the public sector in Islamabad were the population of the study. To select the sample from the population simple random sampling technique was used .100 university teachers (51 males and 49 females) from 5 public universities were taken. The data was gathered by the researcher herself.  The researcher developed the tool of locus of control contained 100 items. The questionnaire was measured with a two-point Likert scale. The reliability of locus of control was .70.There were two dimensions of locus one was internal, and the other was external that was measured by this tool. Data were analyzed through SPSS. Data collected through the tool of locus of control was studied through Mean and t-test in order to compare the gender-based differences of locus of control among teachers at the higher educational level.

Results

Table 1. Mean of Dimensions of Locus of Control border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

Dimensions

width="179">

Mean

width="179">

Standard Deviation

>

Internal Locus

width="179">

5.31

width="179">

0.76

>

External Locus

width="179">

4.59

width="179">

0.82

>Table 1 result shows that internal locus (M = 5.31, SD = 0.76) is greater than external locus (M = 4.59, SD = 0.82).> >Table 2. Independent sample t-test Analysis regarding Gender and Teachers Internal-LOC border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">

Variable

width="11%">

Gender

width="14%">

F

width="14%">

Mean

width="14%">

SD

width="14%">

t-value

width="14%">

p-value

>

Internal-LOC

width="11%">

Male

width="14%">

51

width="14%">

96.49

width="14%">

9.72

width="14%">

1.95

width="14%">

0.05

>

 

width="11%">

Female

width="14%">

49

width="14%">

91.45

width="14%">

11.18

width="14%">

 

width="14%">

 

> 




Table 2 shows the independent sample t-test of gender and teachers internal -LOC. This table indicated that there was a noteworthy difference in the mean values of male professors (M=96.49, SD=9.72) and female professors (M=91.45, SD=11.18) as t=1.95, p< 0.05 that indicates a significant difference between external LOC and male and female professors.




 >Table 3. Independent sample t-test Analysis regarding Gender and Teachers External LOC border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">

Variable

width="11%">

Gender

width="14%">

F

width="14%">

Mean

width="14%">

SD

width="14%">

t-value

width="14%">

p-value

>

External-LOC

width="11%">

Male

width="14%">

51

width="14%">

82.79

width="14%">

18.73

width="14%">

1.98

width="14%">

0.05

>

 

width="11%">

Female

width="14%">

49

width="14%">

89.44

width="14%">

13.33

width="14%">

 

width="14%">

 

> 




Table 3 shows the independent sample t-test of gender and teachers' external LOC. This table indicated that there was a noteworthy difference in the mean values of male professors (M=82.79, SD=18.73) and female professors (M=89.44, SD=13.33) as t=1.98 p< 0.05 which indicates that there is a noteworthy difference between external LOC and male and female professors. 

Discussion

The findings of H01 “there is no significant difference between internal locus of control and gender among professors at university level “was rejected (Table 2). Male teachers showed internal oriented behaviour as compared to female. The findings of the research were supported with the findings of Oguz and Saricam (2016); Gupta et al.; (2015); Callaghan and Papageorgiou, (2015); Surgen (2014); Fagbohungbe and Jayeoba, (2012); Stocks, April & Lynton, (2012) Sakarya-Kucukkaragoz (1998) discovered a noteworthy difference between internal locus and gender. Fakeye (2011), stated that teachers with greater internal locus could more handle their conduct than externals.

 The findings of H02 “there is no significant difference between external locus of control and gender among professors at the university level, "was rejected (Table 3).Female teachers showed external-oriented behaviour as compared to male. The findings of the study were supported by the findings of Gupta et al; (2015), which also observed this difference. Tucker et al. (2007) stated that teachers with a high external locus have faith in chance or destiny and other power sources. 

Bulus (2011) observed that teachers with internal locus are more active in getting and applying their prerequisite knowledge than externals. Grimes et al; (2004) observed that locus of control is a psychosomatic concept that identifies teacher's beliefs about the degree of individual control that can be applied over his or her situation.

Conclusion

The conclusion of the research study was:

1. Male university professors demonstrated a higher score on the internal locus dimension as compared to female   professors.

2.  Female university professors revealed a higher score on the external locus dimension as compared to male professors.

Recommendations

From the conclusion of this research following recommendations were suggested.

1. It may be recommended that additional researches on internal locus of control among teachers may be conducted in order to provide awareness of locus of control.

2. Especially female professors of universities may be educated by higher management regarding internal locus as compared to male professors. 

3. High internal locus of teachers may decrease the strain level and constant internal locus may buffer the strain level as compared to external locus of control of teachers.

4. Policymakers may design training programmes of locus of control and may be conducted by higher authorities of universities that will help the professors to know the importance of locus of control in their profession and its impact on their work performance. These training programs may ease their personality, and they may get success in their profession.

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