Children's Perceptions of Internal-External Control in Intellectual-Academic Situations and Their Embedded Figures Test Performance

This study was designed to reveal some of the intermediate skills which might account for the superior academic performance of children who perceive their reinforcements in those situations as caused by their own behavior (internal control). Internal-external perceptions were related to three performance measures on the Witkin Embedded Figures Test in a sample of 50 elementary school age children. When the effects of age and IQ were partialled out of the internality-embedded figures relationships, prediction was reduced for males but remained at significant levels for females. Although internal females committed as many errors as external females, they were able to identify more figures correctly and in less time than their external peers.