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Effects of achievement differences for internal/external frame of reference model investigations: A test of robustness of findings over diverse student samples
Author(s) -
Schmidt Isabelle,
Brunner Martin,
Preckel Franzis
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
british journal of educational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.557
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 2044-8279
pISSN - 0007-0998
DOI - 10.1111/bjep.12198
Subject(s) - generalizability theory , psychology , german , correlation , academic achievement , test (biology) , mathematics education , social comparison theory , developmental psychology , mathematics , geometry , paleontology , archaeology , biology , history
Background Achievement in math and achievement in verbal school subjects are more strongly correlated than the respective academic self‐concepts. The internal/external frame of reference model (I/E model; Marsh, 1986, Am. Educ. Res. J., 23, 129) explains this finding by social and dimensional comparison processes. We investigated a key assumption of the model that dimensional comparisons mainly depend on the difference in achievement between subjects. We compared correlations between subject‐specific self‐concepts of groups of elementary and secondary school students with or without achievement differences in the respective subjects. Aims The main goals were (1) to show that effects of dimensional comparisons depend to a large degree on the existence of achievement differences between subjects, (2) to demonstrate the generalizability of findings over different grade levels and self‐concept scales, and (3) to test a rarely used correlation comparison approach (CCA) for the investigation of I/E model assumptions. Samples We analysed eight German elementary and secondary school student samples (grades 3–8) from three independent studies ( N s 326–878). Method Correlations between math and German self‐concepts of students with identical grades in the respective subjects were compared with the correlation of self‐concepts of students having different grades using Fisher's Z test for independent samples. Results In all samples, correlations between math self‐concept and German self‐concept were higher for students having identical grades than for students having different grades. Differences in median correlations had small effect sizes for elementary school students and moderate effect sizes for secondary school students. Conclusions Findings generalized over grades and indicated a developmental aspect in self‐concept formation. The CCA complements investigations within I/E‐research.