Academic self‐concept among business students in a recruiting university: definition, measurement and potential effects

Abstract

This study sought to devise a parsimonious instrument for evaluating academic self‐concept (ASC) among British‐born students entering ‘mass‐market’ (post‐1992) universities that cater for diverse and ‘non‐traditional’ intakes. Three major facets of ASC were found to be particularly relevant to these students: self‐belief in one’s academic competence; self‐appreciation of one’s personal worth as a student (independent of ability‐related considerations); and self‐connection with being an undergraduate.

Keywords:

• academic self‐concept
• self‐esteem
• self‐identity
• widening participation

Notes

1. Average variance extracted (AVE) and construct reliability statistics were also examined, but the outcomes were close to the results of the analysis generated by the use of alpha coefficients and thus are not reproduced here.

2. As the indicators of the three components might be said to form rather than reflect ASC, the Table 5 items were employed as formative indicators in a partial least squares regression analysis, using the PLS GRAPH package, version 3. All the indicators had significant regression weights (ρ <.01) on relevant sub‐constructs, and composites formed for the sub‐constructs had significant weights (ρ <.01) as components of overall ASC. This suggests that all the items listed in Table 5 should be retained.