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Negative self-concept: Cross-country evidence of its importance for understanding motivation and academic achievement
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Type
Article
Citation
Gao, Y., & Farhan Ali. (2024). Negative self-concept: Cross-country evidence of its importance for understanding motivation and academic achievement. Education Sciences, 14(11), Article 1203. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14111203
Abstract
Academic self-concept, the belief in one’s ability, is a key motivational construct in educational psychology and large-scale assessments. The construct is typically measured by instruments with positively (“I usually do well in science”) and negatively worded items (“I am just not good in science”). A single latent factor is often assumed. Here, we investigated this assumption using international large-scale assessment data across two age groups of children in fourth grade and adolescents in eighth grade (N = 296,320 students, 23 educational systems). We, instead, found strong evidence of the substantiveness of a negative self-concept factor derived from negatively worded items. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses uncovered negative self-concept as being distinct from positive self-concept. Furthermore, theory-driven modeling supported the internal/external (I/E) frame of reference model effect on negative self-concept: achievement has a stronger effect on eighth graders’ negative self-concept relative to fourth-grade children across many countries, especially for mathematics. Overall, understanding students’ negative appraisals and negative beliefs of their ability is an important theoretical and policy imperative.
Date Issued
2024
Publisher
MDPI
Journal
Education Sciences
DOI
10.3390/educsci14111203
Description
The open access publication is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14111203