Peer feedback has been shown to be an effective strategy to improve academic achievement. However, little evidence is available about the effects of peer feedback on academic outcomes other than achievement, such as academic self-concept (ASC). ASC and achievement are reciprocally related and thus mutual reinforce themselves. The present study focuses on the effect of a four week long structured web-based peer feedback intervention on ASC in the domain of academic writing as a part of a seminar assignment in a sample of undergraduate psychology students. The study investigated the effectiveness with 49 students in a randomized-controlled trial with a pre-and post-test. Each student acted as an author and a reviewer. Results indicated significant improvements in ASC for the domain of academic writing over time as compared to a control group. Furthermore, the causal effect of peer feedback compared to no feedback on ASC for academic writing was strong with d = 0.72. The effect was domain specific, as the ASCs for the sub-domains statistics and language remained unchanged by the intervention. Overall, the results revealed that participation in a peer feedback system is an effective method to enhance ASC in the context of higher education.
Ability self-concept (SC) and self-efficacy (SE) are central competence-related self-perceptions that affect students' success in educational settings. Both constructs show conceptual differences but their empirical differentiation in higher education has not been sufficiently demonstrated. In the present study, we investigated the empirical differentiation of SC and SE in higher education with N = 1,243 German psychology students (81% female; age M = 23.62 years), taking into account central methodological requirements that, in part, have been neglected in prior studies. SC and SE were assessed at the same level of specificity, only cognitive SC items were used, and multiple academic domains were considered. We modeled the structure of SC and SE taking into account a multidimensional and/or hierarchical structure and investigated the empirical differentiation of both constructs on different levels of generality (i.e., domain-specific and domain-general). Results supported the empirical differentiation of SC and SE with medium-sized positive latent correlations (range r = .57-.68) between SC and SE on different levels of generality. The knowledge about the internal structure of students' SC and SE and the differentiation of both constructs can help us to develop construct-specific and domain-specific intervention strategies. Future empirical comparisons of the predictive power of SC and SE can provide further evidence that both represent empirical different constructs.
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