Cross-cultural generalizability of social and dimensional comparison effects on reading, math, and science self-concepts for primary school students using the combined PIRLS and TIMSS data

Abstract

Previous cross-cultural studies of social and dimensional comparison processes forming academic self-concepts (the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) and Internal-external frame-of-reference (I/E) models) have mostly been based on high-school students and two subject domains. Our study is the first to test the cross-cultural generalizability of both comparison processes across reading, mathematics, and science by combining of the TIMSS and PIRLS 2011 databases (15 OECD countries, 67,386 fourth-graders). Consistent with the I/E model, high achievement in mathematics/reading had positive effects on self-concept in the matching domain but negative effects in the non-matching domain. Extending the I/E model, students engaged in assimilating comparisons between science and reading (i.e., achievement in one subject had positive effects on self-concept in the other) but contrasting comparisons between mathematics and science. Strong BFLPEs (negative effects of class-average achievement on self-concept) were found for mathematics but were smaller for reading and science. The results generalized well across all countries.

Psychological Comparison Processes and Self–Concept in Relation to Five Distinct Frame–Of–Reference Effects: Pan–Human Cross–Cultural Generalizability over 68 Countries

“…According to the BFLPE, students use the average accomplishments of their classmates in one area (e.g., math) as a second basis for the formation of their self‐concepts in the same domain. Applying the logic of the I/E model to the BFLPE results in the prediction that school‐average math achievement has a negative effect on MSC but that the effect of school‐average verbal achievement should be positive (compensatory effects model, Figure G; Marsh ; also Guo, Marsh, Parker, & Dicke, ; Marsh, Parker, & Craven, ; Parker, Marsh, Lüdtke, & Trautwein, ). Strickhouser and Zell () provided support for these predictions using experimentally manipulated feedback to control both frame‐of‐reference effects in relation to other people and other domains.…”

Classroom effect on primary school students’ self-concept in literacy and mathematics

“…First, the BFLP effect model has mostly been applied in the analysis of the effects of classes or schools on adolescents' or young adults' academic self-concept (e.g., Jonkmann et al 2012;Marsh and O'Mara 2010;Parker et al 2013;Trautwein et al 2006). There is surprisingly scant research testing the BFLP effect among younger primary school students, even though examination of the BFLP effect is particularly interesting with respect to these years when students' selfperception of their academic performance is being formed (see Guo et al 2018;Marsh et al 2015;Pinxten et al 2015;Thijs et al 2010;Trautwein et al 2008;Wouters et al 2013). Fig.…”

“…When focusing on the results from Western countries, the variation in the negative BFLP effect was notably wide among fourth graders: it ranged from − 0.134 in Norway to − 0.482 in Italy. A study by Guo et al (2018), which also focused on the BFLP effect among fourth graders, indicated that the BFLP effect might be weaker in reading than in math.…”

“…Thus, in the present study, data from students in grade 3 (age 9), grade 4 (age 10), and grade 6 (age 12) were used to examine whether the assumptions of the BFLP effect model already hold during the primary school years in Finland. Because the literature indicates slightly different effects for literacy and math (Guo et al 2018), both subject domains were included in the study.…”

“…The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLP effect) model (Marsh et al 2007) argues that students compare their own academic ability with the academic abilities of their classmates and use this social comparison impression as a basis for forming their self-concept of ability. Previously, this model has primarily been tested among adolescents and in selective school systems (Marsh et al 2007; however, the model has rarely been tested among younger students (see Guo et al 2018), although primary school age might be the most critical period for forming of self-concept of ability. In the present study, we examine whether the effects indicated by the BFLP effect model can already be found in the primary grades and in a school system that does not select and track students according to different abilities, that is, in the Finnish educational context.…”