Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance Scales [IPOCS-24]

Questionnaire Description

The Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance Scales (IPOCS-24) are designed to assess locus of control, referring to individuals’ beliefs about the factors that influence important events and outcomes in their lives. The instrument consists of 24 items and includes three relatively independent dimensions:

Internality: assesses the extent to which individuals believe that outcomes depend on their own actions, abilities, and decisions.

Powerful Others: examines the belief that important outcomes are influenced or controlled by people who hold authority, power, or significant influence.

Chance: evaluates the degree to which individuals attribute events and outcomes to luck, fate, randomness, or other unpredictable external factors.

Aim

The primary aim of the IPOCS-24 is to identify individuals’ locus of control orientation, distinguishing between a predominantly internal and a predominantly external perception of control.

Psychometric Properties

The questionnaire was administered to a sample of 551 primary school students in the fifth and sixth grades, aged 9–12 years, including 282 boys and 269 girls.

Correlations with the Nowicki–Strickland Locus of Control Scale were −0.02 for Internality, 0.30 for Powerful Others, and 0.30 for Chance.

Internal consistency coefficients were 0.54 for Internality, 0.60 for Powerful Others, and 0.53 for Chance. Test–retest reliability coefficients were 0.36, 0.45, and 0.55, respectively.

Scoring

Each item is rated on a six-point response scale:

Strongly Disagree = −3, Disagree = −2, Slightly Disagree = −1, Slightly Agree = +1, Agree = +2, Strongly Agree = +3.

Scores are calculated separately for each subscale, with higher scores indicating a stronger endorsement of the corresponding locus of control dimension.

Note: The reported score range of 6–48 should be verified against the original scoring instructions, as it does not directly correspond to a −3 to +3 response format unless an additional score transformation is applied.

References

Alexopoulos, D. S., & Asimakopoulou, S. (in preparation). Psychometric properties of the Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance Scales.