Does academic self-concept drive academic achievement?

ABSTRACT

Gaps in GCSE attainment have long been the concern of policy makers, academics, and social commentators, largely due to the importance of these exams for setting children on their future academic and career pathways. In the past a wide range of factors relating to the pupils, their families, and their schools have been found to account for differences in GCSE attainment. In this paper we examine the role of pupils’ beliefs in their own academic ability (academic self-concept). Using Next Steps data, we examine whether pupils with higher academic self-concept do better or worse in their GCSEs than pupils with lower academic self-concept. Results show that on average, controlling for other characteristics, having high academic self-concept increases GCSE scores by four grades. When we compare academic self-concept to measured achievement we find that both high and low attainers have higher probabilities of achieving five A*–C GCSEs and higher GCSE point scores on average if they have high academic self-concept than similarly able students who have lower academic self-concept.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic self-concept
• perception of academic ability
• academic achievement
• GCSE attainment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. It is important that our measure of ASC is recorded at an earlier time period than our GCSE outcome scores (collected 2 years later) to reduce the possibility of reverse causality mentioned previously.

2. Like Strand (2011) our measure includes what students think teachers think of them because a person’s self-perception is likely to be formed through experience and interactions with one’s environment (Shavelson, Hubner, & Stanton, 1976) and is therefore related not only to personal attributes but is also influenced by evaluations, or perceptions of evaluations of others (Marsh & O’Mara, 2008). The items are: ‘how much do you agree or disagree that I get good marks for my work’ (strongly agree; agree; disagree; disagree strongly; don’t know); ‘And still thinking about some subjects at school, how good would you say you are at Maths/English/Science/ICT’ (very good; fairly good; not very good; no good at all); ‘How do you think your teachers would describe your school work?’ (very good; above average; average; below average; not at all good; don’t know).

3. Social class is measured using the National Statistics Socio Economic Classification (NS-SEC) which uses occupational types to capture dimensions of social class (Rose & Pevalin, 2001). We make use of the three-category NS-SEC, which consists of: higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations; intermediate occupations; routine and manual occupations.

4. We take an average of the household income over the first four waves and divide by the square root of household size to provide a measure of equivalised permanent income. This has been shown to have a greater association with young people’s educational outcomes than transitory income (Jenkins & Schluter, 2002).

5. Key Stage 2 scores are derived from a Standard Assessment Test taken at age 11. Students were tested on the core curriculum of English, Maths, Science, History, Geography, IT, Design Technology, Art and Design, Music, Physical Education, and Religious Education. The mean KS2 score is 27.2 with a standard deviation of 3.9, a minimum of 15, and a maximum of 36.

6. We have GCSE results for 10,923, Key Stage 2 results for 11,357, and ASC measures for 12,181. When we take a completed case study approach for all these three main variables of interest it results in an analytical sample of 10,144.

7. We take this to mean an individual’s social and economic position in relation to others, based on the measure of education, occupation, equivalised household income and household tenure.

8. The frequencies (and means) for the variables are reported in Table 1.

9. This is diagnosed and known SEN taken from the National Pupil Database.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kirstine Hansen

Kirstine Hansen has a PhD from the London School of Economics and is an Associate Professor of Social Policy in the Department of Social Science, at UCL Institute of Education. Her research interests are related to education and skills acquisition and attainment across the life-course. She has written extensively about the determinants of cognitive development and academic achievement, trying to unpick the mechanisms of inequality of opportunity and outcomes. Her research focuses particularly on childcare and child development; the role of the family in promoting academic success; the role of education in protecting against negative outcomes; and the role perceptions and choice play in achievement.

Morag Henderson

Morag Henderson is a quantitative sociologist and co-investigator of Next Steps, an English longitudinal study. She currently works in the Department of Social Science at UCL Institute of Education as an Associate Professor in Sociology. Henderson achieved her DPhil in Sociology from the University of Oxford in 2013. Her main research interest is on educational inequalities and she has written extensively on the socio-economic attainment gap; educational transitions; the influence of subject choice on subsequent educational and labour market outcomes; the influence of parenting practices on attainment and academic self-concept.