Cognitive and Affective Components of Verbal Self-Concepts and Internal/External Frame of Reference Within the Multidimensional Verbal Domain

Könül Karimova,Benő Csapó

doi:10.1177/21582440211018683

Abstract

Most researchers have studied students’ academic self-concept within native language and mathematics, indicating the multidimensional nature of academic self-concept. However, there is a shortage of studies that examined the twofold multidimensional structure of verbal self-concept within the internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model of two foreign languages. This study aims to examine affective and cognitive components of English and Russian self-concepts for defining the separation or conflation of these components within the I/E model and evaluate cognitive and affective components across gender. A total of 540 eighth-grade Azeri students participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated self-concept structure as twofold multidimensional, distinguishing affective and cognitive components as two different constructs. Study of the I/E model of two language self-concepts showed that Russian achievement correlated with Russian cognitive self-concept and English cognitive self-concept related to English achievement. One general verbal self-concept for different languages may not adequately represent multilingual learners and can produce misleading interpretations. The relationship between the two dimensions of self-concept in two target languages was invariant. The results of this study should encourage researchers to examine subject-specific self-concepts that conceptualize cognitive and affective dimensions of the self-concept and their relationships with achievement.

Highlights

Academic self-concept is defined as a person’s perception of academic ability that develops through interactions and experience in learning domains (Marsh & Martin, 2011)
The present understanding of the multidimensional structure of self-concept can be found in Williams, 2017 (1890/1963) seminal work, The Principles of Psychology, where he proposed the self as multifaceted and hierarchical that played an essential role in the conceptualization of self-concept theory, previous research on selfconcept was based on unidimensional perspective
The self-concept structure was well defined in two target languages when two components were differentiated within the internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model as it is clear from their substantial and positive standardized factor loadings (Figure 1a)

Summary

Introduction

Academic self-concept is defined as a person’s perception of academic ability that develops through interactions and experience in learning domains (Marsh & Martin, 2011). Most researchers (e.g., Marsh, 1986) have concentrated on traditional self-concept domains, such as mathematics and verbal domains Marsh and his colleagues (2020) examined juxtaposition of psychological operations by incorporating. SAGE Open social and dimensional comparison theories that were based on synthesis of five contradictory frame-of-reference and contextual effects in self-concept development at multiple levels. They found theoretical and empirical contribution to juxtaposition of psychological operations that influenced self-beliefs and their relationships to distal results. This study examines cognitive and affective dimensions of verbal self-concept in two target languages arguing for the twofold multidimensional nature of the verbal domain. There is a lack in the research which studied twofold multidimensional verbal self-concept in foreign verbal domain

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Conclusion