Student-Situation Relations in Students’ Real-Time Perceptions of Instructional Quality

Scientific Conference (2022, July)

Students’ Personality and State Academic Self-Concept: Predicting Differences in Mean Level and Within-Person Variability in Everyday School Life

in Journal of Educational Psychology (2022), 114(6), 13941411

A positive academic self-concept (ASC) relates to many desirable educational outcomes. Research on which student characteristics relate to the formation of ASC is therefore crucial. To examine the ... [more ▼]

A positive academic self-concept (ASC) relates to many desirable educational outcomes. Research on which student characteristics relate to the formation of ASC is therefore crucial. To examine the importance of personality for ASC, we investigated the relation between Big Five traits and mean level as well as within-person variability in state general-school ASC for the first time using intensive longitudinal data. The sample comprised N = 291 German ninth and 10th graders who completed a 3-week e-diary after filling in a 60-item Big Five questionnaire assessing extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, negative emotionality, and open-mindedness as well as their respective subfacets (15 subfacets overall). To assess state ASC, students completed three items after each lesson in four different subjects (resulting in Mlessons = 21.32). We ran six mixed-effects location scale models: one with all broad Big Five domains and five (one for each Big Five domain) with the subfacets as predictors of state ASC. Higher scores in the domains and in at least one subfacet of open-mindedness, conscientiousness, and extraversion but lower scores in negative emotionality were related to higher mean levels of state ASC. Higher scores in depression (subfacet of negative emotionality) were related to greater within-person variability in state ASC. These findings suggest that Big Five traits are predictors of mean level and within-person variability in students’ state ASC, thus contributing to a more complete map of the formation of students’ ASC and the role of personality therein. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [less ▲]

Students’ lesson-to-lesson perceptions of the three basic dimensions of instructional quality

Scientific Conference (2021)

Students’ Personality Relates to Experienced Variability in State Academic Self-Concept

Scientific Conference (2020, November 11)

Attaining a positive academic self-concept (ASC) is linked to many desirable educational outcomes. Research on which student attributes relate to the formation of ASC is therefore considered to be central ... [more ▼]

Attaining a positive academic self-concept (ASC) is linked to many desirable educational outcomes. Research on which student attributes relate to the formation of ASC is therefore considered to be central. Past research on the association between personality traits and ASC has taken an interindividual perspective, while the intraindividual perspective has been disregarded. The present research explored the relation between students’ Big Five traits and intraindividual variability in state general-school ASC in everyday school life for the first time using intensive longitudinal data. We drew on N=294 German ninth and tenth graders who completed a three-week e-diary and a previously presented 60-item Big Five questionnaire (BFI-2; Danner et al., 2016; Soto & John, 2017) assessing Open-Mindedness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Negative Emotionality as well as their respective subfacets (i.e., resulting in 15 subfacets). To assess state ASC, students completed three items after every single lesson across four different subjects (resulting in Mlessons = 21.12). We ran six mixed-effects location scale models: one specified with all five Big Five domains, and five (one for each Big Five domain) with the subfacets as predictors of intraindividual variability in state ASC. We found that Open-Mindedness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Negative Emotionality as well as at least one subfacet of each Big Five trait were significant predictors of levels of state ASC independently of students’ gender and reasoning ability, and the narrower subfacets Organization (Conscientiousness) and Depression (Negative Emotionality) predicted variability in state ASC independently of students’ gender and reasoning ability. These findings thus provide first evidence that students’ ASC undergoes short-term fluctuations from school lesson to school lesson and that this intraindividual variability can be partly explained by students’ personality. Our results thus contribute to a more complete map of the formation of ASC and the role of personality therein. [less ▲]

How students perceive instructional quality in everyday school life: The factorial validity of three basic dimensions on a lesson-to-lesson basis

Scientific Conference (2019, November 06)

Examining grades, achievement test scores, and three intelligence facets within an extended I/E model

Scientific Conference (2019, September 10)

Domain-specific academic self-concepts (ASCs) are mental representations of one’s abilities that are specific to a particular school subject. According to the internal/external frame of reference (I/E ... [more ▼]

Domain-specific academic self-concepts (ASCs) are mental representations of one’s abilities that are specific to a particular school subject. According to the internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model, achievement influences the formation of ASCs via social and dimensional comparison processes: within one domain students not only compare their achievement with their peers (social comparison) but also with their own achievements in other domains (dimensional comparison). However, students’ intelligence as an indicator of achievement has been neglected within the I/E model framework. Yet, intelligence is known to be an important determinant of academic success and thus it can be assumed to influence the formation of academic self-concepts, too. Hence, this research examined the links between verbal, numerical, figural intelligence and domain-specific ASCs while controlling for grades and achievement test scores. We drew on N = 382 German students to analyze verbal, numerical, and figural intelligence, German and math achievement, domain-specific self-reported grades and ASCs in math, physics, German, and English. We performed structural equation modeling using Mplus 8 with grades, achievement scores and intelligence facets specified as manifest predictors and domain-specific ASCs as latent criteria. Positive within-domain relations indicating social comparison effects were found between math, physics, German, and English grade to their corresponding self-concept as well as from math achievement to math ASC. Dimensional comparison effects are implied by a positive cross-domain path between physics grade and math ASC and by negative cross-domain paths from math grade to German, physics, and English ASC. Further, a positive cross-domain relation was found between math achievement and physics ASC while a negative cross-domain path was found between German achievement and math ASC. With regard to the intelligence facets, positive paths were found between numerical intelligence and physics ASC as well as between verbal intelligence and English ASC. Our findings thus suggest numerical and verbal intelligence to be valid predictors of ASC formation in an extended I/E model beyond grades and test scores. Overall, the proposed I/E model permitted meaningful relations to be drawn between domain-specific achievement indicators and ASCs suggesting that these variables provide incremental validity. [less ▲]

Implementing intelligence facets as predictors into the generalised I/E model

Scientific Conference (2019, August 13)

The internal/external (I/E) frame of reference model postulates that achievement influences the formation of academic self-concept (ASC) via social and dimensional comparison processes. Its recent ... [more ▼]

The internal/external (I/E) frame of reference model postulates that achievement influences the formation of academic self-concept (ASC) via social and dimensional comparison processes. Its recent extension as the generalized I/E model allows further domains than math and verbal achievement. However, intelligence facets as an indicator of achievement have been neglected within the GI/E model framework. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explore the influences of three intelligence facets (verbal, numerical, figural) on domain-specific ASCs beyond grades and achievement scores. We drew on N=382 German students to analyze verbal, numerical, and figural intelligence, German and math achievement, self-reported grades and ASCs in four domains. We performed a structural equation model using Mplus with grades, achievement scores and intelligence facets specified as predictors and domain-specific ASCs as criteria. Positive paths were found from math, physics, German and English grade to their corresponding self-concepts. A positive path was found between physics grade and math ASC while negative paths were found from English grade to math and physics ASC and from math grade to German, physics and English ASC. The path coefficients from math achievement to math ASC as well as to physics ASC were positive; German achievement was negatively related to math ASC. Lastly, numerical intelligence was positively related to physics ASC, and verbal intelligence was positively related to English ASC. Thus, intelligence, specifically numerical and verbal intelligence, seem to be valid predictors of domain-specific ACSs beyond grades and achievement test scores. [less ▲]