Content specificity of relations between academic achievement and academic self-concept.

Abstract

In extension of research on the Marsh/Shavelson model of self-concept, a set of 14 academic self-concept scales was related to school performances in 8 school subjects for a sample of 507 high school boys. Correlations between matching areas of self-concept and achievement (.45 to .70; mean r=.57) were much larger than those typically found in previous research. Path models and multitrait-multimethod analyses demonstrated that self-concept/academic achievement relations were very specific to particular shcool subjects. The findings indicate that components of academic self-concepts are more differential-less correlated-than are achievement scores and that relations between academic self-concepts and academic achievements are more content specific than has been previously assumed