Relationships Among Health Knowledge, Health Locus of Control, and Health Status in Secondary Special Education Students

Relationships among health knowledge, health locus of control, and health status domains were investigated using 181 learning disabled (LD) and educable mentally retarded (EMR) high school students as subjects. A health knowledge test, the Children's Health Locus of Control (CHLC) scale, and six health status measures were administered. In general, students who had higher knowledge scores tended to be more internal (believed they had control over their health). Lower scores on the health knowledge test tended to be associated with beliefs that their health was controlled by chance or powerful others. Internal and Powerful Others scales of the CHLC were the best predictors of health knowledge for EMR students. For LD students, only the Internal scale made a significant contribution to the prediction. Health status was significantly related to the health knowledge of the EMR students, but the proportion of variance explained was relatively low. Other results were nonsignificant. The implications for health education programming were discussed.