A Sense of Control and School Readiness of Preschool Children

Abstract

The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between the sense of location of control and school readiness, understood as the child’s interest in learning. This relationship, as is clear from the current knowledge of the subject, is important from the point of view of the specificity of the psychophysical functioning of a small child. The sense of control is a psychological concept denoting the dimension of personality, which determines how a person perceives the relationships between his behavior and the effects of this behavior. The main problem was formulated as follows: What is the relationship between the location of the sense of control and the school readiness of preschool children? In order to verify the problem, 80 children aged 6 and their parents were examined. The sense of location of control was measured using the Questionnaire of Sense of Control in Pre-school Children (SPK-DP), while school readiness using the Parental School Readiness Scale (RSGS). The obtained results clearly prove that children who have an external sense of control are rated higher in terms of all the skills that make up school readiness. This applies to both cognitive activity skills, knowledge of social skills and mathematical skills.