Poster #48 - Five Frame-of-Reference Effects Affecting Academic Self-Concept: Pan-Human Universality Over Countries and Constructs

• In Event: 64.090 - MTCC Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: 64.090-8 - Role of Teachers, Learning Environments, Parents, and Peers in Motivational Processes

Abstract

UUsing PISA2012 data, five seemingly paradoxical frame-of-reference effects in academic self-concept (ASC) formation are shown to generalize across 68 countries/regions (18,292 schools, 485,490 students). Consistently with meta-theoretical integration of social and dimensional comparison theories, the effects on math self-concept (MSC) were negative for:
• country-average math achievement (paradoxical cross-cultural effect),
• school-average math achievement (big-fish-little-pond effect),
• individual-student year in school relative to age.
But consistently with an extension of dimensional comparison theory, the effects of verbal achievement on MSC were in the opposite direction to those of math achievement:
• negative for individual-student reading achievement on MSC,
• positive for school-average reading achievement on MSC.
Juxtaposing cross-cultural generalizability and typical meta-analytic approaches supports the pan-human universality of findings.

Author

• Herbert W. Marsh, Australian Catholic University