Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to confirm the predictive validity of several antecedents to students' early perceptions of future performance in collegiate courses. Design/methodology/approach: A non-experimental design was used to test a proposed model based on a review of relevant literature. Students completed surveys capturing the…

The Purpose in Life (PIL) measures more than absence of depression and internalized perceived locus of psychological reinforcement. Depressed external individuals are more identifiable from their existential malaise or emptyness. The experience of reinforcement for being in the world is beyond their control. (Author)

The importance of theory and experimental findings in giving direction, structure, and comprehensibility to research about self-concept is discussed. Analysis of the necessary affective variables to be included in the systematic experimentally-based development of effective educational programs in the affective domain is emphasized. (Author/AL)

Numerous studies on death anxiety report conflicting findings. Concluding that a lack of specificity may explain the mixed results, this study sought to address the lack of focus and to extend and validate the results of an earlier study. A sample of 152 undergraduate students (111 female) from middle to upper-middle class participated. Subjects…

Traditional measures such as Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and grade point averages are not adequate to predict academic achievement of lower-achieving students. Combining traditional predictors with nontraditional ones (including psychological and cognitive variables) produces a more effective predictor model. (IAH)

Presents psychoeducational information about four racial groups of gifted high school students, identified by a nontesting method. Results indicated these students had higher self-concept scores, and higher internal locus of control scores. Racial status appears to have little effect when social position dimensions are controlled. (JAC)

An investigation of 148 community college students regarding cheating behaviors on a final multiple-choice test did not lend support for the association of personality constructs with cheating behaviors except for the anxiety construct. Self-reported grade point average and test score were negatively related to cheating. (Author/PN)

Locus of control is a construct that reflects an individual's perception of control over his or her own destiny. The thesis is that people adopt either an internal or an external orientation. Internally oriented persons consider success the result of ability and effort. Externally oriented individuals attribute success to luck, fate, or powerful…