In this article, Herbert W. Marsh and Sabina Kleitman examine the effects of participation in extracurricular school activities (ESAs) on grade-twelve and postsecondary outcomes (e.g., school grades, coursework selection, homework, educational and occupational aspirations, self-esteem, freedom from substance abuse,number of university applications, subsequent college enrollment, and highest educational level). Their analyses are grounded in three theoretical models: the threshold model, the identification/commitment model, and the social inequality gap reduction model. They find that, consistent with the threshold model predictions, there were some small nonlinear ESA effects — monotonic increases over most of the ESA range, but diminishing returns for extremely high levels of ESA. Consistent with identification/commitment model predictions, school-based ESAs were more beneficial than out-of-school activities, and the most beneficial ESAs included both nonacademic(sports, student government, school publications, and performing arts)and academic activities. Finally, consistent with the social inequality gap reduction model predictions (as well as the identification/commitment model), ESAs benefited socioeconomically disadvantaged students as much or more than advantaged students. In summary, the authors' findings support the conclusion that ESAs foster school identification/commitment that benefits diverse academic outcomes, particularly for socioeconomically disadvantaged students who are least well served by the traditional educational curriculum.

Generally, self-assessment of accuracy in the cognitive domain produces overconfidence, whereas self-assessment of visual perceptual judgments results in underconfidence. Despite contrary empirical evidence, in models attempting to explain those phenomena, individual differences have often been disregarded. The authors report on 2 studies in which that shortcoming was addressed. In Experiment 1, participants (N= 520) completed a large number of cognitive-ability tests. Results indicated that individual differences provide a meaningful source of overconfidence and that a metacognitive trait might mediate that effect. In further analysis, there was only a relatively small correlation between test accuracy and confidence bias. In Experiment 2 (N = 107 participants), both perceptual and cognitive ability tests were included, along with measures of personality. Results again indicated the presence of a confidence factor that transcended the nature of the testing vehicle. Furthermore, a small relationship was found between that factor and some self-reported personality measures. Thus, personality traits and cognitive ability appeared to play only a small role in determining the accuracy of self-assessment. Collectively, the present results suggest that there are multiple causes of miscalibration, which current models of over- and underconfidence fail to encompass.

Participation in high school sports had positive effects on many Grade 12 and postsecondary outcomes (e.g., school grades, coursework selection, homework, educational and occupational aspirations, self-esteem, university applications, subsequent college enrollment, and eventual educational attainment) after controlling background variables and parallel outcomes from Grades 8 and 10 in a large, nationally representative, 6-year longitudinal study. In contrast to Zero-Sum and Threshold Models, these positive effects generalized across academic and nonacademic outcomes, across the entire range of athletic participation levels, and across different subgroups of students (e.g., SES, gender, ethnicity, ability levels, educational aspirations). Sport participation is hypothesized to increase identification/commitment to school and school values which mediate the participation effects, particularly for narrowly defined academic outcomes not directly related to sport participation. Consistent with this Identification/Commitment Model, extramural sport, and to a lesser extent team sport, had more positive effects than intramural and individual sports.

This study showed that working during high school had negative effects on 15 of 23 Grade 12 and postsecondary outcomes such as achievement, course-work selection, educational and occupational aspirations, and college attendance. These effects were found with control for background variables and parallel outcomes from Grades 8 and 10 based on the 8-year (four-wave), nationally representative National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988. The only benefit of working was a reduction in postsecondary unemployment, but even this effect was nonlinear. In the case of most outcomes, the effects of hours worked were primarily linear and negative and were consistent across ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, initial ability levels, and different types of work. Among continuing students who worked during high school, however, working to save money for college had mostly favorable effects.

SELF-CONFIDENCE AND METACOGNITIVE PROCESSES Sabina Kleitman * and Lazar StankovSchool of Psychology, The University of SydneyAbstract. This paper examines the status of Self-confidence trait. Two studies strongly suggest that Self-confidence is a component of metacognition. In the first study, participants (N=132) were administered measures of Self-concept, a newly devised Memory and Reasoning Competence Inventory (MARCI), and a Verbal Reasoning Test (VRT). The results indicate a significant relationship between confidence ratings on the VRT and the Reasoning component of MARCI. The second study (N=296) employed an extensive battery of cognitive tests and several metacognitive measures. Results indicate the presence of robust Selfconfidence and Metacognitive Awareness factors, and a significant correlation between them. Self-confidence taps not only processes linked to performance on items that have correct answers, but also beliefs about events that may never occur. Key words: Confidence ratings, Metacognition, Self-confidence, Metacognitive Self-monitoring.This paper examines the relationship between Self-confidence measured during performance on typical cognitive tests and several conceptually related constructs. These latter constructs include problem-solving strategies, broad self-concepts, metacognitive awareness, and beliefs about occurrences of some future events. The aim is to further our understanding of Self-confidence and establish its status within the taxonomy of cognitive/metacognitive processes. The Self-confidence FactorOur procedure for the assessment of Self-confidence is integrated within the typical test-taking activity. Immediately after responding to an item in a test, participants are asked to give a rating indicating how confident they are that the chosen answer is correct. Confidence is usually expressed in terms of percentages. The confidence ratings for all attempted test items are averaged to give an overall confidence score. *

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This study examines critical aspects of both the ecological and the person-oriented accounts of observed biases in con®dence judgements on tests of cognitive abilities. These biases re¯ect metacognitive processes involved in test-taking. According to the ecological approach, poor realism of con®dence judgements is due to the nature of the items included in general knowledge tests (testdriven biases). The person-oriented approach, however, argues that biases in con®dence judgements may be due to a general self-monitoring trait. The present study employed the`de-biasing' procedure proposed by Juslin (1994) for the selection of general knowledge test items, and used a newly developed geographical knowledge test suitable for the Australian population. Two other cognitive tests (Raven's Progressive Matrices and Line Length) were administered in order to determine whether there is a consistency in con®dence ratings across diverse tasks. Statistical procedures traditional to both approaches-calibration curves and factor analysis -were employed. The results, with minor quali®cations, support both perspectives. The study found a separate con®dence factor, indicative of a self-monitoring trait. Two other potential metacognitive factors (i.e.`expectation' and evaluation', corresponding to self-assessment/planning and self-evaluation) could not be separated from accuracy and speed measures.Metacognition refers to`knowing about knowing' (Metcalfe and Shimamura, 1994). Its signi®cance derives from the realization that information processing is a continuous human activity which always takes place within a context, and which cannot be exercised without some kind of overall coordination of the ingredient processes. Thus, there is a dynamic interplay between one's understanding of a task and the assessment of one's own competency, an interplay that can be utilized in the solution process. The emphasis in this paper is on the self-monitoring component of metacognition, which is frequently regarded as part of a regulative aspect of cognition (Schraw, 1994;Schraw and Dennison, 1994;Schraw and Moshman, 1995). Additional regulative subprocesses include planning, information management strategies, debugging strategies and evaluation. In a similar vein, Nelson and Narens (1990, 1994) regard self-monitoring as a bi-directional process that informs the`meta-level' about an`object level'.It should be noted that there is a body of research that focuses on somewhat different, but related aspects of metacognition. Thus, metamemory deals with the feeling-ofknowing judgements, judgements of learning and ease-of-learning judgements (Nelson

The impostor phenomenon is a pervasive psychological experience of perceived intellectual and professional fraudulence. It is not a diagnosable condition yet observed in clinical and normal populations. Increasingly, impostorism research has expanded beyond clinical and into applied settings. However, to date, a systematic review examining the methodological quality of impostorism measures used to conduct such research has yet to be carried out. This systematic review examines trait impostor phenomenon measures and evaluates their psychometric properties against a quality assessment framework. Systematic searches were carried out on six electronic databases, seeking original empirical studies examining the conceptualization, development, or validation of self-report impostor phenomenon scales. A subsequent review of reference lists also included two full-text dissertations. Predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria were specified to select the final 18 studies in the review sample. Of the studies included, four measures of the impostor phenomenon were identified and their psychometric properties assessed against the quality appraisal tool—Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, Harvey Impostor Scale, Perceived Fraudulence Scale, and Leary Impostor Scale. The findings often highlighted that studies did not necessarily report poor psychometric properties; rather an absence of data and stringent assessment criteria resulted in lower methodological ratings. Recommendations for future research are made to address the conceptual clarification of the construct's dimensionality, to improve future study quality and to enable better discrimination between measures.