In recent years, discussion of the limitations of the standard cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) has increased, and the random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) has been proposed as an ...improved approach to modeling. By now, there are some first applications of the model to investigate reciprocal relations in self-concept development. However, a methodological-substantive integration of the model in the context of the three major comparison processes in self-concept development is still missing, and it has not been used to evaluate dimensional and temporal comparison effects. We provide such an integration in self-concept theory and applied the RI-CLPM to investigate social, dimensional, and temporal comparison effects simultaneously. Investigating a sample of 701 German students from the middle of Grade 9 to the middle of Grade 10, we confirmed previous results by finding trait-like stability in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) self-concept as well as in STEM and language achievement. We also found evidence for all three comparison effects, but evidence for dimensional comparison effects was only found at the between-person level of the RI-CLPM.
Public Significance StatementThis study explains why a recent and still rarely applied modeling method has many advantages to investigate the three major processes of academic self-concept development: comparisons with others, internal comparisons between different subjects, and comparisons with the past. Applying the method confirmed the relevance of these processes and highlighted the importance of appropriately modeling the relatively high stability of self-concepts to obtain accurate results and, consequently, to improve intervention design.
Objective: Physical self-concept and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) are fundamental components of adolescents' health and well-being. Previous research suggests that physical ...self-concept and MVPA share reciprocal relations whereby physical self-concept is both an antecedent (i.e., self-enhancement) and outcome (i.e., skill development) of MVPA. However, these studies rely on subjective reports of MVPA, which can produce social desirability bias and challenge youth's recall capabilities. In order to address this gap, we test a reciprocal effects model examining the interplay between adolescents' physical self-concept and its facets and 7 days of objectively measured MVPA. Method: Australian adolescents (N = 1,767) completed 4,136 time-specific observations across 3 waves of data. Structural equation modeling was used to test the reciprocal effects model. Results: After controlling for body mass index and sex, results only supported the role of MVPA as an antecedent of physical self-concept. The percentage of time adolescents spent in MVPA during school was especially important to predicting a higher physical self-concept in the future. Conclusions: Findings did not support a reciprocal effects model of physical self-concept and objectively measured MVPA. Rather, physical self-concept and facets were outcomes of school-based MVPA, suggesting emphasis be placed on promoting adolescents' physical activity participation. This study demonstrates the benefits that school MVPA provides to adolescents' development of a positive physical self-concept, which is essential to optimizing long-term health and well-being.
The Reciprocal Effects Model (REM) posits that academic self-concept and corresponding achievement measures are reciprocally related over time. Although there is considerable support for the REM ...based on short-term, narrowly focused educational accomplishments, little research evaluates the long-term implications of this reciprocal pattern of relations. Using large-scale longitudinal data from the U.S. Educational Longitudinal Survey (16,197 high school year 10 students from 751 schools, followed up through age 26), we found support for the REM (based on math self-concept MS) and achievement collected in years 10 and 12), with and without control for covariates (gender, socioeconomic status, school-average socioeconomic status, and reading achievement). We then extend this basic REM model, demonstrating long-term implications of the REM based on total, direct, and indirect (mediated) effects of Year 10 MSC and achievement on: end-of-high-school outcomes (units in mathematics, and highest level of mathematics based on actual school transcripts); postsecondary outcomes at age 26 (educational attainment, completion of the STEM credential, math courses, and advance math units); and long-term expectations (educational, occupational, and STEM job). The total (direct + indirect) effects of year 10 MSC and achievement were statistically significant for all subsequent outcomes, but their influence on postsecondary and long-term expectations were largely mediated by intervening variables. However, consistent with REM logic, MSC effects were mediated in part via math achievement, and math achievement effects were mediated in part via MSC. Hence, the extended REM design provides an ideal basis for evaluating the long-term effects of MSC.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Studies of the Reciprocal Effects Model (REM) show that academic self-concept and corresponding achievement measures are reciprocally related over time-the academic self-concept and achievement are each a cause and an effect of each other. Our study supports this research with one of the largest, most nationally representative samples ever considered. However, we extend this REM research by showing that these reciprocal effects extend to long-term outcomes at age 26 and expectations at age 30. The results show that academic self-concept is an important outcome and also facilitates subsequent academic achievement, long-term educational attainment, and long-term expectations.
Abstract Fostering social and academic self-concepts are central educational goals. During mid-adolescence academic engagement and success seem to be devalued by peers and to be negatively associated ...with students' social standing. For this age group, is the development of a positive academic self-concept compatible with the development of a positive social self-concept? We investigated relations among academic self-concept, social self-concept, and academic achievement. 1282 students (47.60% female) participated in three-waves of measurement in Grade 5, 6, and 8. Earlier social self-concept of acceptance negatively predicted changes in academic self-concept over time while earlier social self-concept of assertion positively predicted changes in academic self-concept. There were no significant relations between social self-concepts and achievement but positive reciprocal relations between academic self-concept and achievement. Results indicate that fostering adolescents self-concept in social and academic domains are compatible goals. However, some students need support in managing the challenge to coordinate social and academic goals.
How do peer groups influence academic self-concept formation? We evaluate developmental issues in the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE; negative effects of class-average achievement on math ...self-concept MSC) and its generalizability to peer-group-average achievement (1,017 primary-school students tested in Years 4 and 6, 46 classes, 130 peer groups). The effects of peer-group-average and class-average achievement on MSC were both negative when we considered these two contextual effects separately. However, the effect of peer-group-average became nonsignificant in models with both contextual effects; the negative effect of class-average achievement was relatively unaffected. Results for peer-group-average achievement contradict predictions based on local dominance theory (that the BFLPE should be more negative for peer-group-average achievement than the more local frame of reference, a contrast effect) and social comparison choice studies (that peer-group-average achievement effects should be positive, an assimilation effect). Unsurprisingly, we found BFLPEs based on class-average achievement and gender differences favoring boys in both Years 4 and 6. However, consistent with theories of the cognitive development of social comparison and gender socialization/intensification processes, we also found negative effects of class-average and gender differences favoring boys on change in MSC (MSC in Year 6 controlling for MSC in Year 4) over this critical late-childhood period. Our results support the robustness of the BFLPE based on class-average achievement and developmental processes underpinning it, but do not support the posited effects of peer-group-average achievement.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This longitudinal study explored the role of classmates and self-chosen peers in the formation of students' mathematics self-concepts during primary-school years. Our findings showed that classmates' role in the formation process of mathematics self-concept was more influential than the role of self-chosen peers. Our results confirmed the existence of a widely studied psychological phenomenon, big-fish-little-pond effect. Results showed that studying in a well-achieving class may have detrimental effects on individual students' academic self-concept as students compare themselves to their classmates. In addition, mathematical self-concept was higher for boys than girls, and this gender difference intensified with age.
Academic self-concept (ASC) is characterized by the dual nature of stability and change. That is, students strive for consistency in their self-concept but also receive achievement feedback that ...leads to changes in ASC. Only a few previous studies have scrutinized the stability of ASC. The STARTS model (Stable, AutoRegressive Trait, and State) disentangles three sources of variation that underlie individual differences in a construct across time: (a) a time-invariant stable component, (b) a time-varying, partly stable component, and (c) an occasion-specific state component. This study is the first to analyze the stability of ASC with the STARTS model. Rather than selecting a single data set, we followed the idea of using an integrative data analysis (IDA) and applied the STARTS model to 11 longitudinal studies that included more than 20,000 students. Our results show that there is a substantial proportion of stable trait variance in both mathematical (26%) and verbal self-concept (24%)-that is, some sources of individual differences in ASC are completely stable (e.g., genes, preschool environment). The largest part of the variation in ASC across time could be attributed to factors that systematically changed in an autoregressive way (e.g., achievement feedback). Mathematical self-concept showed higher stability than verbal self-concept as a result of a smaller proportion of occasion-specific state variance. The IDA also revealed substantial heterogeneity across studies. We argue that disentangling stable and temporally changing aspects of ASC is important not only for informing theory but also for assessing the potential of psychological interventions.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Promoting the academic self-concept of students, that is, their confidence in their own academic abilities, is an important educational goal (a) in and of itself and (b) because students with higher self-concepts have been shown to have more successful school careers. In this study, we focused on the stability of academic self-concept-that is, the extent to which it is a student characteristic that is stable or malleable and changing over time. Our study is the first to employ the STARTS model to academic self-concept research showing that there is a completely academic stable self-concept component, but most of the variation over time is only partly stable. Our results further suggest that because academic self-concept changes over students' school careers, it is thus malleable and can be targeted by specific interventions and influenced by teaching practices. Finally, self-concept in mathematics was found to be more stable than self-concept in the language of instruction. One interpretation may be that students hold more fixed beliefs or mindsets about mathematical ability; such beliefs could be challenged by teachers. Overall, our results contribute to the understanding of academic self-concept, which is one of the most important motivational factors in students' school careers.
Students' cognitive and motivational profiles have a large impact on their academic careers. The development of such profiles can partly be explained by the reciprocal internal/external frame of ...reference model (RI/E model). The RI/E model predicts positive and negative longitudinal effects between academic self-concepts and achievements within and across 2 academic domains (i.e., the mathematics and verbal domains). In the present study, we replicated the RI/E model in 2 samples and extended it by simultaneously investigating the longitudinal associations of academic self-concepts and achievements in 3 academic domains (i.e., mathematics, German as a native language, English as a foreign language). We examined 2 domains across 4 measurement occasions in 2 independent student samples who were in Grades 5-8 (Study 1: N = 1,529) or Grades 5-7 (Study 2: N = 639). In a 3rd study, we examined a subsample of the 2nd sample (N = 465) in 3 domains. Results demonstrated support for the RI/E model for 2 as well as 3 academic domains. We found positive reciprocal effects of academic self-concepts and achievements within a domain, positive reciprocal effects between achievements across domains, negative effects of achievements on subsequent cross-domain self-concepts, negative effects of academic self-concepts on subsequent cross-domain achievements, and some support for negative effects of academic self-concepts on subsequent cross-domain self-concepts. Furthermore, we found that RI/E model effects were of comparable size across time. To conclude, the RI/E model provides significant insights into the development of distinct motivational and cognitive profiles and, thus, of becoming either a math or verbal person. Implications for research and educational practice are discussed.
Students evaluate their domain-specific abilities by comparing their own achievement in a certain domain with the achievement of others (social comparison), with their own prior achievement (temporal ...comparison), and with their own achievement in other domains (dimensional comparison). This article is the first to analyze the simultaneous effects of social, temporal, and dimensional comparisons on students' academic self-concepts of various domains in experimental and field studies. In Study 1 (N = 120), students judged their ability self-concept after having received experimentally manipulated social, temporal, and dimensional comparison feedback. In Study 2 (N = 924), students had to rate their math and German self-concept and were asked to directly compare their achievement to social, temporal, and dimensional comparison standards. In the longitudinal Study 3a (N = 3,054) and 3b (N = 14,008), the three types of comparisons were modeled in an extended internal/external frame of reference model (Marsh, 1986) containing paths from math and verbal achievement level and achievement change to math and verbal self-concept. In all studies, social, temporal, and dimensional comparisons showed significant effects on self-concept. For each comparison process, downward comparisons with worse-off standards resulted in higher self-concepts, whereas upward comparisons with better-off standards resulted in lower self-concepts. These results are in accordance with the theories underlying social, temporal, and dimensional comparison processes and support their integration into a combined framework.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Academic self-concepts describe students' subjective beliefs concerning their strengths and weaknesses in different school subjects. A high self-concept is of major importance; for example, students tend to show better achievements in a certain subject if they have a high self-concept in the respective subject. This study shows that three comparison processes bear an influence on the formation of students' academic self-concepts: social comparisons, temporal comparisons, and dimensional comparisons. Students develop a higher academic self-concept if they judge their achievement superior in comparison with their classmates (social comparison), with their prior achievement (temporal comparison), and with their achievement in other subjects (dimensional comparison). Teachers can make use of these findings by stressing specific comparison processes to support their students in the development of positive academic self-concepts.
The investigation of self‐prioritization via a simple matching paradigm represents a new way of enhancing our knowledge about the processing of self‐relevant content and also increases our ...understanding of the self‐concept itself. By associating formerly neutral material with the self, and assessing the resulting prioritization of these newly formed self‐associations, conclusions can be drawn concerning the effects of self‐relevance without the burden of highly overlearned materials such as one’s own name. This approach was used to gain further insights into the structure and complexity of self‐associations: a tactile pattern was associated with the self and thereafter, the prioritization of the exact same visual pattern was assessed – enabling the investigation of crossmodal self‐associations. The results demonstrate a prioritization of self‐associated material that rapidly extends beyond the borders of a sensory modality in which it was first established.
Studies investigating the effects of emotional exhaustion among teachers have primarily focused on its relations with teacher-related outcome variables but little research has been done for examining ...its relations with student outcomes. Therefore, this study examines the relations between teachers' emotional exhaustion and educational outcomes among students. Students' educational outcomes considered here cover a wide range of cognitive (i.e., achievement in terms of school grades and standardized achievement test scores) and noncognitive (competence self-perceptions, school satisfaction, and perceptions of teacher support) outcomes. The analyses are based on the PIRLS 2006 German data including 380 teachers and 7,899 4th grade students. The results demonstrated direct negative relations between teachers' emotional exhaustion and the class average of students' school grades, standardized achievement test scores, school satisfaction, and perceptions of teacher support, but not competence self-perceptions. At the individual student level, the results showed significant relations between noncognitive outcomes and academic achievement.
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