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Alientation And Internal-External Locus Of Control As Predictors Of Student Political Participation, Joanne M. Miller

Honors Theses

Seventy-two undergraduates (ages 18-23) from The University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University participated in this study to examine the potential predictors for student political participation. After methodological problems of past research - such as the confounding of activism and ideology and the specific focus on activism in the 1960's - were corrected, Dean's (1961) Alienation scale, Rotter's (1966) Internal-External Locus of Control scale, and Olsen's (1969) Alienation scale were used to predict political activity levels, as measured by Kerpelman's (1972) Activity scale. A stepwise multiple regression procedure showed that futility (a subscale of Olsen's Alienation scale) was the only …