While conducting oral histories with women who had been students during WWII years at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor (UMHB), when it was a female-only college,  I heard many amazing stories. The recountings often concerned what female students had done during those years and how they were impressed by what their female, faculty,  role models had accomplished during the war years. One of the oral histories I conducted was with
Berneta Peeples, who had demonstrated internal locus of control as an active and assertive local historian and journalist for sixty years. The oral history revealed Berneta's internal locus of control, especially in her driving desire to research and report Belton and UMHB history. The oral history also revealed the impact on Berneta of a female, faculty, role model at the university, Dr. Mildred Fussel. Dr. Fussel had been head of the English Department, when Berneta was a student at the UMHB.  Ms. Peeples told a story with awe about her role model, Dr. Fussel.

     She was a child protege . . . when she started school at six years old she was in the third grade, both her
     parents were teachers. She was teaching in high school . . . before she was nineteen years old. She had her
     masters when she was twenty-one. Along came WWII and Mildred enlisted in the WACS. She was one of
     thirty-six girls who were chosen for cryptoquote. It was a code. They sent code messages. There were
     thirty-six of them. They lived in separate barracks. They never saw anybody but these thirty six. They
     were transported in armored trucks from their barracks to Lord only knows where . . .All these strange little
     messages about Project Manhattan were going. About four o'clock one morning she realized that somebody
     was breathing down her neck. She got through sending that message. She slammed her chair back on
     somebody's toes. And Harry Truman was standing there. (Peeples, 1993)

From my ethnographic, historical studies at the UMHB from fall 1992 through spring 1995 research questions emerged. My first ethnographic research had looked at the years from 1886-1972, during the female-only days of the university. I studied UMHB students from the female-only days by reading published works by former students and faculty on the female-only history of the college. Further, I surveyed the entire Class of 1945, collected oral histories from female leaders from the female-only days of the school, and audiotaped and transcribed narration from two former students who have lived near the institution and studied its history for 60 years. Patterns of characteristics emerged from these projects. One pattern that emerged from this ethnographic research was the strong influence of female role models, especially that of faculty role models. Patterns of characteristics from the ethnographic, historical studies at the UMHB from fall 1992 through spring 1995 suggested that these female students had an internal locus of control. Students from the college's female-only days reported that events in their lives were contingent on their own behavior, choices, actions, and personal characteristics, suggesting internal locus of control. Taking responsibility for their own lives, students from the female-only days typically moved into careers for which they had deliberately prepared, suggesting career salience.

Through reading writings, interviewing, and surveying students of female-only days at this university, I concluded that women educated at the UMHB before the 70’s, in general, seemed to have had both an internal locus of control and female role models. Two basic questions emerged from this historical research:

The two initial questions which emerged from the 1992-95 ethnographic, historical projects generated research questions. I conducted a research project from 1994-1996. This was a study of first-year, female, college students and their identification of female staff or faculty role models at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Measurement  used Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale and a questionnaire which I developed which related to the students' identification of role models.

The first purpose of this study was to investigate locus of control as a changeable variable in first-year, female, coeducational college students. The second purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship of internal locus of control between first-year, female college students and the identification of female role models. This study was built on a review of literature in the fields of education, psychology, sociology, industry, and labor.

Literature that relates to the issues of locus of control in females and the effects of female modeling (of females in general on other females and the effects of female role models on female college students) can be found in the fields of education, sociology, psychology, and labor. Studies in these areas indicate that internal locus of control, self-esteem, career salience, and achievement in females are positively related to the presence of female role models.

In educational literature, there are two leading theories and many research projects directly pertinent to this study. Weiner provides a theory of attribution, and Bandura provides a theory of observational learning from models. Studies of many educational researchers support the ideas that having female role models can influence professional choices, career salience, academic and professional success, self-esteem, and attitudes toward women, in both female students and in female professionals. Further, research provides evidence of locus of control as a significant factor in achievement motivation.

Weiner asserts that people attribute their successes and failures to internal or external reinforcers. An "internal person" attributes successes and failures to her ability or to her effort. An "internal person" attributes her performance to causes for which she assumes personal responsibility. An "external person" attributes her performance to factors for which she has no responsibility and over which she has no control. If she fails, the "external person" assumes that the task was too difficult or that she was unlucky (or both). If the "external person" succeeds, she attributes her success to the easiness of the task or to luck. (Weiner, 1986)

Bandura's theory of observational learning concerns learning from models. (Bandura, 1969) He asserts that much behavior is acquired through observing and imitating other people. He contends that new patterns of behavior are learned through observing behavior without the observer overtly responding or receiving any reinforcements in the exposure setting. He writes, "Modeling influences . . . can create generative and innovative behavior." (Bandura, 1977: 40-41)

He argues that observers watch models performing responses, which embody a certain principle. Later the observers behave in a way stylistically similar to the model's behavior, even though the observer is not mimicking the model's specific responses, because the observer has applied what she has learned from the model to a new, but related, situation. (Bandura, 1977)

Bandura and Walters assert that teachers as role models may have three types of effects on students. The first is the "modeling effect," which involves the student's direct imitation of the model's behavior. The second is the "disinhibitory effect," which involves the student's observing the consequences of the model's actions and consequently choosing behavior in opposition, if the model's observed consequences were undesirable. For example, when female faculty members are regarded with low esteem by school administrators and are not treated as equals, the effect may be to inhibit female students' aspirations toward the teaching profession. The third modeling effect is the "eliciting effect," which involves the increased susceptibility in a student to the influence of the role model. For example, a female teacher who holds high expectations for female students' achievement may have an increased probability of influencing the female students' performance through cues which elicit a positive response in the students. (Bandura and Walters, 1969)

Studies provide evidence that same-sex role modeling may be especially important for female students. Studies provide evidence of a positive relationship between same sex-role modeling and academic achievement. Studies of many educational researchers support the ideas that female role models affect professional choices, career salience, academic and professional success, self-esteem, and attitudes toward women in female students and in female professionals. Older women seem important as role models in the biographies of successful women. (Douvan, 1976) The role of a crucial older women model is prominent in the biographies of women successful in politics, writing, and academics. Douvan suggests two important reasons why eastern women's colleges produce a disproportionate number of women who achieve prominent positions in the arts, business, politics and other professional fields. She contends that a serious and intense intellectual climate exists at women's colleges, a climate that has been described by a number of observers. That climate contains another reason for the disproportionate number of achieving women at women's colleges, that of modeling.

Walum's finds a strong identification in female Ph.D.s with female role models. In her study of female Ph.D.s,  she found that they strongly identified with a female role model, who were in and ourtside of her family.  Nearly all of the women spoke with passion concerning the importance these models had in motivating them. Walum asked her subjects about books they remember from childhood. Her subjects alluded to books about famous women and spoke of their identification with the heroines in these books. In a further study of undergraduate women, Walum found a significant relationship between career aspirations and memories of heroines from books read in childhood.

Tidball reports from her studies that female role models enhance the career salience of female college students and concludes that women's colleges produce twice as many achieving women as do coeducational colleges. Walker's research supported the idea that a positive relationship exists between female role models and females students' self-esteem and career salience, especially during the first year of college. An important body of educational theories and research exists which supports the idea that a positive relationship exists between students' career choices, academic and professional success, and attitudes toward women and female professionals.

Further, academic achievement is related to the construct of locus of control in educational literature. Strain studied locus of control as a predictor variable related to academic persistence and achievement motivation.

     She asserts that other educational researchers predict that . . . students with internal locus of control will persist
     longer in college... Further, research findings accumulated over the last 20 years affirm the importance of locus
     of control as a factor in motivation of students. (Strain 1993: in Howard 1996)

Strain contends that although factors of intrinsic motivation are a basis for students' persistence behavior, only one concrete, measurable motivational factor, that of locus of control, has been identified in research. Strain asserts that the construct of locus of control has been particularly valuable in studying academic persistence.

     Research conducted in the late 70s . . . conducted at multiple institutions with large numbers of students,
     reported findings that locus of control was related to persistence . All . . . studies found that students who were
     more internal persisted at higher rates.... These studies contributed a major finding related to locus of control as
     a factor in persistence. This finding defines an aspect of weak motivation and identifies a motivational factor
     which was amenable to intervention.... Motivation describes forces that energize a person and direct activity;
     therefore, persistence is believed to be a behavioral pattern that forms a basis for inferences about motivation.
     Motivational theory aims to account for changes from one activity to another. Intrinsic motivation relates to the
     character of the motivation that is described by goal commitment. Thus, an examination of the principles of
     motivational theory could assist in identifying factors of motivation that may be basic to student persistence.
     (Strain 1993: in Howard 1996)

Educational research provides evidence of locus of control as a significant factor in achievement motivation. Evidence of locus of control as predictive of academic persistence and role modeling as effectual of academic success is also found in educational literature. Further, there is evidence that role modeling by female professionals affects self-esteem, attitudes toward women, professional choices, career salience and professional success in female students.

Studies in the field of psychology provide evidence of locus of control as a changeable variable which can be affected by modeling. Studies in this field also address the relationship of modeling to change, the relationship of models to locus of control, the relationship of investigation of knowledge (cognitive inquiry) to locus of control, and the relationship of locus of control in women to their competitors. Studies in counseling psychology investigate the use of models to motivate change by observational learning. Modeling has been found positively related to motivation to change in counselees in many counseling categories. 

Numerous studies in the field of psychology have investigated internal locus as a changeable variable and as a variable which can be affected by modeling. Literature in the field of psychology provides evidence of locus of control as a changeable variable, of the positive relationship of role models to locus of control, of the positive relationship of cognitive inquiry to locus of control, of the positive relationship of role models to change, and of a more positive relationship of internal locus of control in women in relationship with other women than with men.

Many studies in the field of sociology also present evidence concerning the effect of the presence or absence of role models on female college students. Rossi supports   the idea of the positive effect of female role models on female college students. Rossi addressed the issues of stereotypes and social climate that discourage female professional, non-traditional achievement by discouraging females to be independent thinkers. She concluded that women in non-traditional professions were more likely to have had female professional role models. (Rossi, 1965)

Fox’s studies support the idea that same-gender role models affect undergraduate choice of major. Basow and Howe studied role-model influence in college students and gave an overview of related literature on the subject.

     ... a number of studies have demonstrated the importance and influence of female role models on
     the career development of women at various ages and educational levels. Mothers have been found
     to be particularly important in influencing their daughters' career orientations and attitudes (Almquist
    & Angrist, 1971; Baruch, 1972, Tangri, 1972). Exposure to other female role models through work
    experiences has been found to be influential to the career-oriented college women studied by Astin,
    ... as well as Almquist and Angrist  (1971) and O'Donnell and Anderson (1978). Female teachers
    and college faculty have also found to be important influences on female students in regard to
    achievement and success, (Tidball, 1973), goals and values (Douvan, 1976), and subsequent professional
    achievement and productivity (Epstein, 1970; Goldstein, 1979).(Basow & Howe, 1980: 559-560)

Based on their review of literature, Basow and Howe predict that women are particularly influenced by female role models in making important life decisions. Basow and Howe conclude from their study of college students that "female models were particularly important for female college students in their career decisions, especially mothers and female teachers."

The fields of industry and labor also present evidence concerning the positive relationship of female role models to female college students' educational and professional choices and attainments. In April 1995, The Industrial and Labor Relations Review published a series of papers entitled "Symposium: Role Models in Education." Three papers deal with the importance of female faculty as role models in higher education. Literature in the four fields of education, sociology, psychology, and labor pointed toward the positive relationship of locus of control in females and female modeling (of females in general on other females, and the effects of female role models on female college students). Studies in these areas indicated that internal locus of control, self-esteem, career salience, and achievement in females is positively related to the presence of female role models.

Two basic questions emerged from the 1992-1995 University of Mary Hardin-Baylor historical study:

      1. Is locus of control in female college students a changeable variable?

      2. Does female college students' locus of control tend to become increasingly more
           internal when they are influenced by female role models?

These questions guided the development of seven research questions for the 1994-1996 research project:

       1. Will first-year female students who identify for themselves a female faculty or staff
            role model (RM) measure as having a stronger internal locus of control than
            first-year female students at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor who do not
            claim to have a female faculty or staff role model (NM)?

       2. Would a testing of subjects in October, the fifth week of the first semester of a
            school year, show a statistical difference in locus of control between the
            RM group and the NM group?

       3. If so, what would be the difference in their locus of control?

      4. Would same subjects in the RM group and in the NM group tested in May,
           at the end of school year, show a difference in, or a change of direction of, locus of control?

       5. If so, what would be the difference in, or change of direction of, locus of control of the
           RM and NM groups from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year?

        6. Would a second group tested in March, the fifth week of the second semester of the school year,
             and in May, at the end of the school year, show similar differences in, or change of direction
             of locus of control, as those of the first group tested in October and May of the same school year?

        7. What would the relationship be between identification of role models and the direction of
             change of locus of control over the course of one school year?

To answer these questions, I developed a study to investigate the relationship of locus of control in first-year, coeducational female students who had identified a staff or faculty role model, or not, at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. The population of first-year female students was selected because evidence suggested that the influence of role models may be greater at earlier stages in a college student's educational career than at later stages.

In this study of first-year female, coeducational students at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, in mid-October, during the fall semesters of 1994-95, two instruments were used in pretests: Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (Rotter 1966) and a questionnaire I developed. This questionnaire was used by the subjects to identify whether or not they had a role model at the university and to describe their perceptions of the role model's attributes. The term role was defined as an individual who had "skills or qualities" that the student admired and wished "to emulate." (Anderson & Ramsey, 1990:183)

This study investigated locus of control as a changeable variable in first-year, female, coeducational, college students at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Further, it investigated the relationship between locus of control in these subjects and their identification, or not, of female, faculty or staff, role models.

This study presented evidence that suggested that the subjects who identified role models had stronger internal locus of control than the subjects who did not identify role models, that locus of control was a changeable variable, that internal locus of control increased over the first year of college in the role model group (positive effect), and that internal locus of decreased over the first year of college in the no role model group (negative effect). Thus, this study suggested a factor, which may strengthen internal locus of control in first-year, female, coeducational college students.