Self-concepts, self-esteem, and educational experiences: The frog pond revisited (again).

Causal models, guided by a "frame of reference" hypothesis, were used to examine whether school academic climates have any impacts on self-concepts of academic ability, global self-esteem, and long-range educational attainments. Analyses were based on a subsample of 1,487 White males from the Youth in Transition nationwide study of high school students. After the effects of individual ability and family socioeconomic status (SES) were controlled, there were only small negative effects of school mean ability on self-concepts and self-esteem. Educational attainment 5 yrs beyond high school was strongly influenced by background, ability, and grades, but there was little additional impact from self-concepts and self-esteem, and no overall effect attributable to school climate. Findings differ sharply from those reported by H. W. Marsh and J. W. Parker (see record 1984-32730-001), which were based on their study in 5 Australian schools. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dosimetry fundamentals of endovascular therapy using Re-188 for the prevention of restenosis after angioplasty]

This study investigated whether self-esteem precedes various academic behaviors and beliefs among 593 high school students (63.7% female, 60.9% African American). Measures of home and school self-esteem, grade point average, perceived academic standing and progress, and educational plans were collected by survey and archival review of grade and attendance records at the beginning (pre-test) and end of the school year (post-test). Self-esteem and academic variables differed by gender, race, and guardianship. Self-esteem related significantly to academics and absenteeism. Results suggest selected academic variables predict self-esteem even when the effects of gender, race, and guardianship are removed and pretest self-esteem scores are controlled. In conclusion, student academic performance influences subsequent academic and home self-esteem. Creation of positive academic experiences for youth may be a critical activity, since experts contend that low self-esteem is associated with subsequent behavioral problems. The markedly lower self-esteem of Native American and Hispanic youth warrants further investigation.     

Relationship between classroom behavior and academic achievement.

To investigate the relationship between classroom behavior patterns and academic achievement, multiple regression procedures were carried out in which the frequencies of 12 behaviors were used to predict the achievement scores of 90 2nd graders. Ss, with an average IQ of 98.69, were observed for 5-min periods on each of 4 days during language arts in the fall of the school year and again in the spring. The final multiple R between fall behavior patterns and fall achievement was .63, and that between spring behavior patterns and spring achievement was .51. The final multiple R for predicting spring achievement from fall behavior was .60. Of particular interest was the finding that the predictive value of combinations of discrete behaviors compared favorably to that obtained from IQ tests (r = .70), and that the addition of behavioral information to test information provided a more accurate prediction of achievement over the school year than that obtained by either alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social-cognitive influences on change in aggression over time.

This study examined whether social cognitions that have been assumed to influence aggression actually forecast change in aggressive habits over time. Participants were 189 3rd- through 7th-grade boys and girls; data on social cognitions and social behaviors were collected in the fall and spring of the school year. Aggression-encouraging cognitions assessed in the fall indeed promoted aggression over the school year, but such developments hinged critically on child sex and on initial (fall) levels of aggression and victimization. Results illustrate the principle that cognitions affect behavioral development mainly when the child's transactions with the social environment support the use of the cognitions as guides for behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social-cognitive-behavioral model of academic predictors of adolescents' life satisfaction.

The current study provided a comprehensive examination of factors related to school that are implicated in students' life satisfaction. A theoretical model is put forth that hypothesizes that behavior experiences (classroom conduct, school grades) and social experiences (perceived school climate) at school influence students' cognitions relative to their global academic beliefs and attitudes toward their current school. These cognitive contexts of schooling are hypothesized to constitute students' judgments of their satisfaction with school, an important predictor of global life satisfaction. Self-report measures assessing adolescents' perceptions of these constructs were administered to a pilot sample of 321 high school students in a southeastern city. Simultaneous regression and correlational analyses clarified which aspects of school climate and other school-related factors were significantly associated with students' life satisfaction. Results of a revised path model provided preliminary support for the model. Findings support the relevance of considering students' quality of life in addition to the current focus on monitoring academic achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Peer Academic Reputation in Elementary School: Associations With Changes in Self-Concept and Academic Skills.

The developmental significance of children's academic reputation among peers was examined in a longitudinal study of 400 children in Grades 3, 4, and 5. In the fall of Year 1, teachers rated children's academic skills and behavior, and peers provided nominations describing classmates' academic skills, social acceptance versus rejection, and aggressive behavior. In the fall and spring of Year 1, children provided reports of their academic self-concept, social self-concept, and global self-worth. In the fall of Year 2, teachers rated children's academic skills. Results indicated that 4 items assessing peer academic reputation formed an internally consistent scale that was correlated moderately and distinctively with teacher-rated academic skills. Peer academic reputation and teacher-rated academic skills each contributed independently to the prediction of fall-to-spring changes in children's academic self-concept. Peer academic reputation and academic self-concept contributed uniquely to the prediction of changes in teacher-rated academic effort and skills over a 1-year period. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Life satisfaction reports of gfted middle-school children.

Compared 61 gifted and 61 nongifted middle-school students' reports of their subjective well-being using a positive indicator of well-being, that is, life satisfaction. The results supported the separability of the life satisfaction domains with both groups of students. Subsequent comparisons of mean levels of satisfaction revealed no significant differences between the 2 groups on reports across both domain-specific (e.g., family, friends, school experiences) and global life-satisfaction indexes. However, the manner in which the specific domains related to global life-satisfaction reports differed as a function of group membership. Consistent with expectations, gifted students' evaluations of the quality of their school experiences accounted for greater portions of unique variance in the formulation of their overall or global life satisfaction reports than was the case for their nongifted counterparts. The findings are discussed in relation to future research and educational planning in the area of gifted students' subjective well-being, particularly with respect to consideration of the importance of school climate for this group of exceptional children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teachers' and students' beliefs about punishment.

360 1st, 3rd and 5th graders and their 16 teachers from 3 school systems were interviewed in the fall and spring of the same school year to assess the developing relationship between teachers' and students' beliefs about punishment. Older children were less punitive than younger children. Teachers remained relatively punitive compared with 5th graders. Teachers with more punitive beliefs had students whose beliefs were more punitive when compared with students whose teachers had less punitive beliefs. Children and teachers thought that teachers should give more punitive responses than peers for the same misbehavior. The school systems that allowed corporal punishment had students with more punitive beliefs than the school system without corporal punishment. Results indicate that the school environment is perceived to be authoritarian and punitive by students and teachers. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The contribution of children’s self-regulation and classroom quality to children’s adaptive behaviors in the kindergarten classroom.

In this study, the authors examined the extent to which children’s self-regulation upon kindergarten entrance and classroom quality in kindergarten contributed to children’s adaptive classroom behavior. Children’s self-regulation was assessed using a direct assessment upon entrance into kindergarten. Classroom quality was measured on the basis of multiple classroom observations during the kindergarten year. Children’s adaptive classroom behavior in kindergarten was assessed through teacher report and classroom observations: Teachers rated children’s cognitive and behavioral self-control and work habits during the spring of the kindergarten year; observers rated children’s engagement and measured off-task behavior at 2-month intervals from November to May. Hierarchical linear models revealed that children’s self-regulation upon school entry in a direct assessment related to teachers’ report of behavioral self-control, cognitive self-control, and work habits in the spring of the kindergarten year. Classroom quality, particularly teachers’ effective classroom management, was linked to children’s greater behavioral and cognitive self-control, children’s higher behavioral engagement, and less time spent off-task in the classroom. Classroom quality did not moderate the relation between children’s self-regulation upon school entry and children’s adaptive classroom behaviors in kindergarten. The discussion considers the implications of classroom management for supporting children’s early development of behavioral skills that are important in school settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes, self-esteem, and learning in formal and informal schools.

Changes in expectations, self-esteem, and learning transfer over a 6-mo period were assessed with questionnaire data obtained from 151 6th graders in 3 formal schools and 68 6th graders in 3 informal schools. Informal school students showed more positive attitudes toward school and teachers and greater transfer of learning to nonschool settings than did formal school students. No differences were found for academic expectations, self-esteem, or performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Peer victimization and academic achievement in a multiethnic sample: The role of perceived academic self-efficacy.

This study examines the link between perceived peer victimization and academic adjustment in an ethnically diverse sample of 1,895 Grade 6 students nested within 108 school classes. It was hypothesized that students' academic self-efficacy mediates the (negative) link between victimization experiences and academic achievement outcomes. Multilevel analyses were used to test this hypothesis and to explore whether there are differences between ethnic minority and majority group children. Results indicated that peer victimization was negatively associated with both relative class-based, and absolute test-based measures of academic achievement. These associations were similar across different school classes. As expected, the link between victimization and achievement was mediated by perceived academic self-efficacy, suggesting that victimized students did less well academically because they considered themselves to be less competent. The lower perceived self-efficacy of victimized children could be partly attributed to lower global self-esteem and depressed affect. Results were largely similar for ethnic minority and majority group children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early school competence: The roles of sex-segregated play and effortful control.

The purpose of this research was to examine the role that young children's same-sex peer interactions play in influencing early school competence. The authors also examined the degree to which effortful control (EC) moderated these relations. The same-sex play preferences of 98 young children (50 boys and 48 girls; mean age = 54.77 months) were observed during the fall semester. At the end of the fall semester, one set of teachers reported on children's EC, and at the end of the following spring semester, another set reported on children's school competence (social, academic, and perceptual-motor). Results revealed that EC moderated the relations of children's same-sex play to their school competence. These patterns differed for boys and girls such that same-sex play was positively related to school outcomes for boys high in EC and for girls low in EC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multilevel exploration of the influence of teacher efficacy and burnout on response to student problem behavior and school-based service use.

There is an increasing concern about teacher factors, such as burnout or low efficacy, which have been hypothesized to influence student outcomes like achievement or discipline problems. The current study examined how burnout and efficacy relate to student disciplinary actions (e.g., referrals to the principal and suspensions) and referrals for school-based support services (e.g., student support and special education), while adjusting for school-, teacher-, and student-level variables. Data were collected during the fall and spring of a single school year from 491 teachers regarding 9,795 students at 31 elementary schools. Contrary to expectations, having low teacher efficacy in the fall was associated with a reduction in student referrals to the student support team. Also unexpectedly, teachers with high burnout in the fall were less likely to have students who received an out-of-school suspension by the spring. These findings enhance our understanding of the teacher factors that influence student outcomes and may inform the development of screenings and teacher-targeted interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reputation for success (or failure): The association of peer academic reputations with academic self-concept, effort, and performance across the upper elementary grades.

The associations between children's academic reputations among peers and their academic self-concept, effort, and performance were examined in a longitudinal study of 427 students initially enrolled in Grades 3, 4, and 5. Assessments were completed in the fall and spring of 2 consecutive school years and in the fall of a 3rd school year. Peer academic reputation (PAR) correlated moderately strongly with teacher-rated skills and changed over time as a function of grades earned at the prior assessment. Path-analytic models indicated bidirectional associations between PAR and academic self-concept, teacher-rated academic effort, and grade point average. There was little evidence that changes in self-concept mediated the association between PAR and effort and GPA or that changes in effort mediated the association between PAR and GPA. Results suggest that peers may possess unique information about classmates' academic functioning, that children's PARs are psychologically meaningful, and that these reputations may serve as a useful marker of processes that forecast future academic engagement and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of self-handicapping tendencies

This study was undertaken to determine when U.S. children begin to self-handicap, that is, to reduce preparation effort before evaluations rather than applying themselves to do their best. The personal variables examined for their impact on practice behavior were gender, grade level, and self-esteem. The situational variables were time of the self-esteem test (before or after the evaluation task) and importance of the evaluation task. The results showed that (a) the 6th-grade boys were more likely than the 6th-grade girls to self-handicap, (b) the 3rd-grade children were not as affected as the 6th-grade children by the self-evaluation implications of performance evaluations, (c) self-handicapping by low-self-esteem and high-self-esteem 6th graders depended on recent experiences, and (d) the self-affirming experience of a self-esteem test reduced the motivation to self-handicap among high-self-esteem 6th-grade boys.     

Motivational dynamics of children's academic help-seeking and concealment.

Models of self-regulated learning and of children's coping both consider help-seeking an adaptive response to academic problems, yet students do not always seek help when it is needed, and help-seeking generally declines across early adolescence. A study of 765 children in elementary and middle school (Grades 3-6) during fall and spring of the same school year investigated whether motivational resources predicted help-seeking and whether losses in motivational supports across the middle school transition mirrored age declines. As predicted, 3 motivational self-perceptions were tightly correlated with coping in fall and spring; relatedness was the primary predictor of increases in help-seeking, whereas a sense of incompetence predicted increases in concealment. Teacher reports of motivational support also predicted changes in student coping and were mediated by children's self-perceptions. Analyses of reciprocal effects of students' help-seeking and concealment on changes in teacher support corroborated hypothesized cycles in which motivationally "rich" children, by constructively seeking help, become "richer," whereas motivationally "poor" children, by concealing their difficulties, become "poorer." Age differences in children's motivational resources across the transition to middle school paralleled age differences in help-seeking and concealment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A school-randomized clinical trial of an integrated social–emotional learning and literacy intervention: Impacts after 1 school year.

Objective: To report experimental impacts of a universal, integrated school-based intervention in social–emotional learning and literacy development on change over 1 school year in 3rd-grade children's social–emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes. Method: This study employed a school-randomized, experimental design and included 942 3rd-grade children (49% boys; 45.6% Hispanic/Latino, 41.1% Black/African American, 4.7% non-Hispanic White, and 8.6% other racial/ethnic groups, including Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American) in 18 New York City public elementary schools. Data on children's social–cognitive processes (e.g., hostile attribution biases), behavioral symptomatology (e.g., conduct problems), and literacy skills and academic achievement (e.g., reading achievement) were collected in the fall and spring of 1 school year. Results: There were main effects of the 4Rs Program after 1 year on only 2 of the 13 outcomes examined. These include children's self-reports of hostile attributional biases (Cohen's d = 0.20) and depression (d = 0.24). As expected based on program and developmental theory, there were impacts of the intervention for those children identified by teachers at baseline with the highest levels of aggression (d = 0.32–0.59) on 4 other outcomes: children's self-reports of aggressive fantasies, teacher reports of academic skills, reading achievement scaled scores, and children's attendance. Conclusions: This report of effects of the 4Rs intervention on individual children across domains of functioning after 1 school year represents an important first step in establishing a better understanding of what is achievable by a schoolwide intervention such as the 4Rs in its earliest stages of unfolding. The first-year impacts, combined with our knowledge of sustained and expanded effects after a second year, provide evidence that this intervention may be initiating positive developmental cascades both in the general population of students and among those at highest behavioral risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences and the development of perceived control

Research on individual differences demonstrates that children's perceived control exerts a strong effect on their academic achievement and that, in turn, children's actual school performance influences their sense of control. At the same time, developmental research shows systematic age-graded changes in the processes that children use to regulate and interpret control experiences. Drawing on both these perspectives, the current study examines (1) age differences in the operation of beliefs-performance cycles and (2) the effects of these cycles on the development of children's perceived control and classroom engagement from the third to the seventh grade. Longitudinal data on about 1,600 children were collected six times (every fall and spring) over 3 consecutive school years, including children's reports of their perceived control and individual interactions with teachers; teachers' reports of each student's engagement in class; and, for a subset of students, grades and achievement tests. Analyses of individual differences and individual growth curves (estimated using hierarchical linear modeling procedures) were consistent, not only with a cyclic model of context, self, action, and outcomes, but also with predictors of individual development over 5 years from grade 3 to grade 7. Children who experienced teachers as warm and contingent were more likely to develop optimal profiles of control; these beliefs supported more active engagement in the classroom, resulting in better academic performance; success in turn predicted the maintenance of optimistic beliefs about the effectiveness of effort. In contrast, children who experienced teachers as unsupportive were more likely to develop beliefs that emphasized external causes; these profiles of control predicted escalating classroom disaffection and lower scholastic achievement; in turn, these poor performances led children to increasingly doubt their own capacities and to believe even more strongly in the power of luck and unknown causes. Systematic age differences in analyses suggested that the aspects of control around which these cycles are organized change with development. The beliefs that regulated engagement shifted from effort to ability and from beliefs about the causes of school performance (strategy beliefs) to beliefs about the self's capacities. The feedback loop from individual performance to subsequent perceived control also became more pronounced and more focused on ability. These relatively linear developmental changes may have contributed to an abrupt decline in children's classroom engagement as they negotiated the transition to middle school and experienced losses in teacher support. Implications are discussed for future study of individual differences and development, especially the role of changing school contexts, mechanisms of influence, and developmentally appropriate interventions to optimize children's perceived control and engagement.     

Age and schooling effects in story recall and story production.

The relative influences of age- and schooling-related experiences on story memory and storytelling were examined. 40 kindergarten and 39 Grade 1 children whose birth dates clustered around the cutoff date for school entrance listened to and recalled short, 1-episode stories (story recall task) and completed other stories (story production task) for which they were given beginning information. Children were tested in fall (at 5.6 years) and spring (at 6.3 years) of the school year and in spring of the following school year (at 7.3 years). For the story recall task, significant age-related effects were obtained for overall amount of recall, whereas schooling-related effects in kindergarten were obtained for patterns of recall as a function of causal relations. For the story production task, age-related as well as schooling-related effects of kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 were obtained for structural complexity. Age-related effects are attributed to general development in memory capacity and deployment of cognitive resources, whereas schooling-related effects are attributed to restructuring of the story representation in memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of child-centered play therapy on the self-esteem, locus of control, and anxiety of at-risk 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students.

Addresses the impact of child-centered play therapy on the self-esteem, locus of control, and anxiety level of at-risk 4th, 5th, and 6th grade children. The two groups of students, those who participated in play therapy and those who did not participate in play therapy, were administered the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Scale—Revised, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children. While the results indicate that children participating in play therapy did not change, the students not participating in play therapy demonstrated a decrease in both self-esteem and locus of control over the course of the school year. These findings indicate that an intervention, such as play therapy, may be needed to prevent at-risk children from developing lower self esteem and from reducing their sense of responsibility for their academic successes and failures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)