Innsette i fengsel: Samanhengen mellom kontrollplassering, utdanningsaktivitet og utdanningsønske. Ei empirisk undersøking i alle norske fengsel

Prisoners have the same right to education as all other citizens in Norway. In accordance to political guidelines, the prisons and prison schools have a responsibility to promote inmates' participation in education while incarcerated. In order to meet with this direction in best possible ways, there is a pronounced need for more research-based knowledge about inmates' motivation and what affect their wishes and choices regarding education. This master thesis focuses on how inmates' locus of control affect their educational participation and educational wishes in Norwegian prisons. Locus of control is a cognitive variable postulated to have implications for motivated behavior. The study is based on quantitative data, collected by the Bergen Cognition and Learning Group (BCLG) at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen. The data includes information from 2065 inmates in Norwegian prisons, obtained using standardized questionnaires. Logistic regression analysis was used in order to examine the variable effects. It was expected that a higher internal locus of control would indicate more educational participation and educational wishes in prison. In addition, several other background variables were controlled for, namely age, country of birth, length of sentence, completed level of education, and experienced learning difficulties in reading, writing and mathematics. The results showed that the inmates' locus of control is not significantly related to their educational participation in prison. Age, country of birth, length of sentence, completed level of education, and experienced reading difficulties appear to be significant explanation variables. Furthermore, the results showed that the inmates' locus of control have a significant effect on their educational wishes. However, the direction of the relationship goes in the opposite direction of what was expected. More precisely, a higher external locus of control indicates more educational wishes in prison. Of background variables, country of birth and length of sentence gave additional significant explanatory contribution. The findings are discussed in light of theory on locus of control and attribution, as well as previous research on educational motivation and locus of control amongst prison inmates.