The Value of Assessing Pupils’ Academic Self-Concept

ABSTRACT

The Myself-As-a-Learner scale (MALS) has been constructed to assess academic self-concept (Burden, R. L. [2000]. The Myself As a Learner Scale. Birmingham: Imaginative Minds; Burden, R. L. [2012]. The Myself As a Learner Scale [2nd ed.]. Cognitive Education Development Centre, Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter.). The scale consists of 20 self-referring statements to which individuals are invited to respond in a positive, negative, or neutral manner. A Norwegian translation proved to be an internally consistent tool for schools. The internal consistency was explored in a sample of 84 monolingual children in which all children were assessed twice with a time difference of about 8 months. Compared to a control group (N = 31) we found no significant effect of participation in a vocabulary training study on the children’s academic self-concept. Instead we found that high achievers evaluated themselves more positively over time, while low achievers evaluated themselves more negatively in the same period.

KEYWORDS:

• MALS
• academic self-concept
• vocabulary
• low-achievers

Notes

* Robert L. Burden, emeritus Professor, University of Exeter, had an active role in the preparation of this article. However, he died in spring 2014, without being able to complete the work with us. We dedicate the article to him in memory of his work on the Myself-as-a-Learner Scale.