AN EXPLORATORY INVESTIGATION OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ PROBLEMATIC INTERNET USE, LOCUS OF CONTROL, AND LONELINESS IN THE UNITED STATES
YULIANG LIU *
Department of Educational Leadership, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA
WILLIAM MASTEN
Department of Psychology, Counseling & Special Education, Texas A&M University-Commerce, USA
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This quantitative study was designed to investigate the mean differences in Problematic Internet Use (PIU), locus of control, and loneliness among a variety of factors as well as whether there was any significant relationship among those three variables in pre-service teachers. Seventy undergraduate pre-service teachers were recruited to participate in the study at a midwestern public university in the United States in 2013. Data were collected from one self-developed questionnaire, the Local of Control (LOC) Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and the Online Cognition Scale (OCS) for assessing an individual’s PIU in four categories: OCS-impulsivity, OCS-loneliness/depression, OCS-social comfort, and OCS-distraction. Overall, significant mean differences in OCS subscale scores were found among different subgroups. International implications for pre-service teacher related training and pre-employment screening potentially result from this study.
Keywords: Problematic internet use (PIU), locus of control, loneliness, pre-service teachers, quantitative study