Brief Description

The Parental Locus of Control Scale consists of 47 statements distributed across five subscales. These subscales assess parents’ beliefs regarding responsibility and control over their children’s behavior. The five subscales are: (1) Parental Efficacy (10 items), (2) Parental Responsibility (10 items), (3) Child Control of Life (7 items), (4) Belief in the Environment (10 items), and (5) Control by Others (10 items). The scale focuses on whether the locus of control is internal or external in the parenting context.

Purpose

The scale is designed to assess parents’ perceptions of whether their children’s successes or failures are influenced by themselves (internal control) or by external factors (external control).

Scoring Method

Statements are rated on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Some items are reverse-scored. Each subscale score is calculated by summing the relevant item scores, with higher totals indicating stronger endorsement of the underlying belief measured by that subscale.

Validity

Factor analysis revealed the presence of five factors, three of which correspond to those in the original version. The remaining two factors were more specific to the Greek sample but still relate to constructs present in the original tool.

Reliability

The overall Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was 0.80. The subscales demonstrated internal consistency ranging from 0.62 to 0.81, with the exception of the “Child Control of Life” subscale, which showed low reliability (α = 0.32).

Data Analysis and Use

The scale is used to identify parental beliefs related to responsibility and control over children’s behavior. Scores are analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and group comparisons (e.g., gender, age).

References

Campis, L. K., Lyman, R. D., & Prentice-Dunn, S. (1986). The parental locus of control scale: Development and validation. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 15, 260–267.
Kokkinos, K. M., & Panayiotou, G. (2004). The influence of parents’ beliefs about control over child behavior on the use of disciplinary practices. Psychologia: The Journal of the Hellenic Psychological Society, 11, 571–584.
Kokkinos, C. M., & Panayiotou, G. (2007). Parental Discipline Practices and Locus of Control: Relationship to Bullying and Victimization Experiences of Elementary School Students. Social Psychology of Education, 10, 281–301.