Sensıtivity to Punishment In The Academic Context: It’s Relationship With Locus of Control, Gender and Grade Level / Akademik Bağlamda Ceza Hassasiyeti: Denetim Odağı, Cinsiyet ve Sınıf Düzeyiyle İlişkileri

Abstract

Sensitivity to punishment can be defined as the sensitivity that results in being over sensitive to punishment and punishment stimuli, fear, anxiety, inhibition, and reactivity that is not functional. Despite the fact that punishment practices are frequently encountered in academic contexts, the review of literature has not revealed a measurement tool towards measuring students' sensitivity to punishment in the academic context. For this reason, in this study, the Scale of Punishment Sensitivity in the Academic Context (SPSAC) for Middle School Students to be used for measuring middle school students' sensitivity to punishment in the academic context was firstly developed. It was then determined whether internal-external locus of control was a variable predicting sensitivity to punishment in the academic context, and whether sensitivity to punishment differed based on gender and grade level variables. The population of this study consisted of the students studying at middle schools in the central districts of Eskisehir province. This study used the data gathered from 741 students of fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade studying at five middle schools selected using simple random sampling method among these schools. As a result of EFA, which was performed for construct validity, three factors having an eigenvalue higher than 1 and explaining 66% of the total variance were revealed. The goodness-of-fit indexes [χ 2 =41.03, p<.01, χ 2 /sd=1.75, GFI =0.96, AGFI =0.93, NFI =0.95, NNFI =0.97, SRMR =0.05, RMSEA =0.05, CFI= 0.98] for the CFA model showed a good model-data fit. The split-half reliability coefficient for the SPSAC total scores was .83, the Alpha reliability coefficient was .80, and the test-retest reliability was .80. The analyses showed that the SPSAC scores significantly differed based on the gender and grade level variables, and internal-external locus of control was an important predictor of sensitivity to punishment (R = 0.545, R 2 = 0.297, p<.01).