TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schmidt, Isabelle
A1  - Brunner, Martin
A1  - Preckel, Franzis
T1  - Effects of achievement differences for internal/external frame of reference model investigations
T2  - British journal of educational psychology
N2  - 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 (Ns 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.
KW  - academic self-concept
KW  - frame of reference
KW  - elementary school students
KW  - dimensional comparisons
KW  - internal/external frame-of-reference model
Y1  - 2017
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/50959
SN  - 0007-0998
SN  - 2044-8279
VL  - 88
IS  - 4
SP  - 513
EP  - 528
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -