Developmental Dynamics of General and School-Subject-Specific Components of Academic Self-Concept, Academic Interest, and Academic Anxiety.

Katarzyna Gogol,Romain Martin,Franzis Preckel,Thomas Goetz,Martin Brunner

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00356

Abstract

The present study investigated the developmental dynamics of general and subject-specific (i.e., mathematics, French, and German) components of students' academic self-concept, anxiety, and interest. To this end, the authors integrated three lines of research: (a) hierarchical and multidimensional approaches to the conceptualization of each construct, (b) longitudinal analyses of bottom-up and top-down developmental processes across hierarchical levels, and (c) developmental processes across subjects. The data stemmed from two longitudinal large-scale samples (N = 3498 and N = 3863) of students attending Grades 7 and 9 in Luxembourgish schools. Nested-factor models were applied to represent each construct at each grade level. The analyses demonstrated that several characteristics were shared across constructs. All constructs were multidimensional in nature with respect to the different subjects, showed a hierarchical organization with a general component at the apex of the hierarchy, and had a strong separation between the subject-specific components at both grade levels. Further, all constructs showed moderate differential stabilities at both the general (0.42 < r < 0.55) and subject-specific levels (0.45 < r < 0.73). Further, little evidence was found for top-down or bottom-up developmental processes. Rather, general and subject-specific components in Grade 9 proved to be primarily a function of the corresponding components in Grade 7. Finally, change in several subject-specific components could be explained by negative effects across subjects.

Highlights

Academic self-concept, academic interest, and academic anxiety are key affective-motivational constructs in educational research that have been shown to determine academic effort, choices, and success but are considered to be vital learning outcomes themselves (e.g., Marsh and Yeung, 1997a,b; Zeidner, 1998; Marsh et al, 2005; Marsh and O’Mara, 2008; Goetz et al, 2010; Schunk et al, 2010)
In more recent educational research, academic anxiety has been considered to be specific to subjects (Goetz et al, 2007)
Following the methodological advice given by Cumming (2014) and Bonett (2012) for carrying out replication studies, we drew on two representative longitudinal samples to tackle two key objectives of developmental research (Baltes and Nesselroade, 1979): to analyze differential stabilities and to predict change in these affective-motivational constructs

Summary

Introduction

Academic self-concept, (individual) academic interest, and academic anxiety are key affective-motivational constructs in educational research that have been shown to determine academic effort, choices, and success but are considered to be vital learning outcomes themselves (e.g., Marsh and Yeung, 1997a,b; Zeidner, 1998; Marsh et al, 2005; Marsh and O’Mara, 2008; Goetz et al, 2010; Schunk et al, 2010) Given their relevance for students’ learning and educational careers, it is important to understand the developmental dynamics of these constructs. We were able to scrutinize the similarities and differences in the developmental dynamics of these constructs

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion