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.
Academic self-concept and achievement have been found to be reciprocally related across time. However, existing research has focused on self-concept and achievement scores that have been averaged ...over long time-periods. For the first time, the present study examined intraindividual (within-person) relations between momentary (state) self-concept and lesson-specific perceived achievement (i.e., self-reported comprehension) in students' everyday school life in real time using intensive longitudinal data. We conducted an experience-sampling (e-diary) study with 372 German secondary school students in Grades 9 and 10 over a period of 3 weeks after each mathematics lesson. Multilevel confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a two-factor between-level and within-level structure of the state measures. We used dynamic structural equation modeling to specify a multilevel first-order vector autoregressive model to examine the dynamic relations between self-concept and perceived achievement. We found significant reciprocal effects between academic self-concept and perceived achievement on a lesson-to-lesson basis. Further, we found that these relations were independent of students' gender, reasoning ability, or mathematics grades. We discuss implications for methodology, theory, and practice in self-concept research and educational psychology more generally.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This study suggests that students' momentary perception of their mathematics ability (i.e., their state mathematics self-concept) directly influences their lesson-specific comprehension (i.e., perceived achievement) from mathematics lesson to mathematics lesson. In turn, state mathematics self-concept is itself influenced by students' previous perceived achievement (i.e., in showing reciprocal relations). Therefore, our results indicate that students' state mathematics self-concept makes a substantial contribution to their academic development in their everyday life at school.
School-average achievement is often reported to have positive effects on individual achievement (peer spillover effect). However, it is well established that school-average achievement has negative ...effects on academic self-concept (big-fish-little-pond effect BFLPE) and that academic self-concept and achievement are positively correlated and mutually reinforcing (reciprocal effects model). We resolve this theoretical paradox based on a large, longitudinal sample (N = 14,985 U.S. children) and improved methodology. More appropriate multilevel modeling that controls for phantom effects (due to measurement error and preexisting differences) makes the BFLPE even more negative, but turns the peer spillover effect from positive to slightly below zero. Thus, attending a high-achieving school has negative effects on academic self-concept and a nonpositive effect on achievement. The results question previous studies and meta-analyses showing a positive peer spillover effect that do not control for phantom effects, along with previous policy and school selection decisions based on this research.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Counter to a widely held belief that being in a high-achieving school has a positive effect on student's achievement (peer spillover effect), the present findings suggest that this effect is actually slightly negative. When using stronger, more appropriate statistical methodology, the apparent peer spillover effect disappeared, suggesting that positive effects are a phantom. Furthermore, the negative effect of school-average achievement on academic self-concept (big-fish-little-pond effect) turned out to be even more negative when using more appropriate methodology. Thus, the findings indicate that attending a high-achieving school has a negative effect on self-concept and no positive effect on achievement. These results call into question prior research that did not control for phantom effects, and challenge policy and practice decisions that promote selective schooling.
The association between academic self-concept and achievement is assumed to be reciprocal. Typically, the association is analyzed by variants of the classical cross-lagged panel model. Results with ...more recently developed methodological approaches, for example, the random intercept cross-lagged panel model, its continuous-time implementation, and the latent change score model, are not available so far. The present study aimed to test the association between reading self-concept and reading achievement with different models to evaluate whether positive cross-lagged effects can be demonstrated with the alternative models. Drawing on a sample of 2,014 elementary students from Grade 1 to Grade 4, results of alternative models yielded noticeable differences. Support for reciprocal effects between reading self-concept and reading achievement was found using the classical and the full-forward cross-lagged panel models. No such effects were found in the other models. Thus, the reciprocal effect model can be called into question for elementary schoolchildren. The results are discussed with regard to the theoretical assumptions and appropriate methodological approaches.
Ever since the classic research of Nicholls (1976) and others, effort has been recognized as a double-edged sword: while it might enhance achievement, it undermines academic self-concept (ASC). ...However, there has not been a thorough evaluation of the longitudinal reciprocal effects of effort, ASC, and achievement, in the context of modern self-concept theory and statistical methodology. Nor have there been developmental equilibrium tests of whether these effects are consistent across the potentially volatile early-to-middle adolescence. Hence, focusing on mathematics, we evaluate reciprocal effects models (REMs) over the first 4 years of secondary school (grades 5-8), relating effort, achievement (test scores and school grades), ASC, and ASC × Effort interactions for a representative sample of 3,144 German students (Mage = 11.75 years at Wave 1). ASC, effort, and achievement were positively correlated at each wave, and there was a clear pattern of positive reciprocal positive effects among ASC, test scores, and school grades-each contributing to the other, after controlling for the prior effects of all others. There was an asymmetrical pattern of effects for effort that is consistent with the double-edged sword premise: prior school grades had positive effects on subsequent effort, but prior effort had nonsignificant or negative effects on subsequent grades and ASC. However, on the basis of a synergistic application of new theory and methodology, we predicted and found a significant ASC × Effort interaction, such that prior effort had more positive effects on subsequent ASC and school grades when prior ASC was high-thus providing a key to breaking the double-edged sword.
This study expanded on research on temporal relations among motivation constructs as stated by expectancy-value theory, which has so far neglected the differentiation of value facets, the examination ...of long time spans with multiple measurement waves, and domain-specific patterns of findings. We examined the longitudinal relations among academic self-concept, intrinsic value, and attainment value in the three domains of math, German, and English across 5 annual measurement waves covering Grades 5 to 9 with German secondary school students (N = 2,116). The analyses based on cross-lagged panel models. In math and English, former academic self-concept was positively related to later intrinsic value and attainment value. In German, former intrinsic value and attainment value were positively related to later academic self-concept. The cross-lagged relations among value constructs varied according to the domain, hinting at the domain specificity of findings. The relations among academic self-concept, intrinsic value, and attainment value in the 3 domains did not change in size across students' secondary school years. In addition, the pattern of all relations remained stable when controlling for students' domain-specific achievement measured by school grades in the respective domains.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Former academic self-concept was found to be positively related to later intrinsic value and attainment value across five annual measurement waves during secondary school in the domains of math and English. This finding implies that students develop more interest and enjoyment and might perceive higher subjective relevance when they feel competent in math and English. Hence, educational practice should emphasize the enhancement of students' academic self-concept in math and English. In the domain of German, however, former intrinsic value and attainment value were found to be positively related to students' later academic self-concept. Hence, interest development and emphasizing relevance seem to be important to boost students' self-perceptions of competence in German. The temporal relations among the two value facets of intrinsic value and attainment value varied contingent upon the domain considered (i.e., math, German, and English). These findings contribute to the advancement of expectancy-value theory by pointing to the domain specificity of longitudinal relations among expectancy, intrinsic value, and attainment value facets. The findings further help to better inform empirical educational research on motivational development in secondary school.
Example-based learning often uses a design in which learners first receive basic instructional explanations of new principles and concepts and then examples thereof. In this sequence, it is crucial ...that learners self-explain by using the content of the basic instructional explanations to elaborate on the examples. Typically, learners are not provided with access to the basic instructional explanations while they engage in self-explaining. However, it is reasonable to assume that this established design is suboptimal to some extent. When learners cannot retrieve the required knowledge components of the instructional explanations from memory, they can hardly generate the crucial self-explanations. Against this background, we analyzed the effects of a potential remedy for this suboptimality. Specifically, in 2 experiments with high school students we tested the effects of providing learners with constrained access to the basic instructional explanations while they engaged in self-explaining. The constraints were that learners were instructed to review the instructional explanations only when they could not remember certain required knowledge components or when they needed to check their self-explanations. We found that the effects of the constrained review option depended on learners' academic self-concept. Learners with low academic self-concepts benefitted from the review option, whereas learners with high academic self-concepts were even hindered by it. We conclude that the constrained review option should not be provided to learners with high academic self-concepts. On a more general level, we furthermore conclude that a high academic self-concept can be an obstacle rather than a beneficial resource in certain learning settings.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
In example-based learning, learners often first receive basic instructional explanations of new principles and concepts and then examples thereof. In this sequence, it is crucial that learners self-explain by establishing interrelations between the content of the basic instructional explanations and the examples. Typically, learners are not provided with access to the basic instructional explanations while they engage in self-explaining. As this typical arrangement might be suboptimal, in 2 experiments in which 8th-grade high school students learned new chemistry concepts, we investigated whether the outlined example-based learning sequence could be enhanced by providing learners with a constrained option to review the basic instructional explanations while they engaged in self-explaining. Our findings indicate that the effects of the review option depend on learners' academic self-concept-learners who perceived their general academic abilities in chemistry as being low (i.e., low academic self-concept) benefitted from the review option, whereas learners with high academic self-concepts in chemistry were even hindered by it.
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.
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.
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