No abstract

The present study is centrally concerned with self-handicapping and defensive pessimism (comprising defensive expectations and reflectivity), the factors that predict these strategies, and the associations between these strategies and a variety of academic outcomes. Major findings are that task orientation negatively predicts both self-handicapping and defensive expectations and positively predicts reflectivity; uncertain personal control positively predicts defensive expectations, and to a lesser extent, selfhandicapping; and an external attributional orientation is positively associated with self-handicapping, and to a lesser extent, defensive expectations. Both self-handicapping and defensive expectations are negatively associated with self-regulation and persistence, whereas reflectivity is positively associated with these outcomes. Students high in self-handicapping received lower end-of-year grades than did students low in self-handicapping and were less likely to be in attendance 1 year later.

A new, adaptive procedure for assessing multiple dimensions of self-concept for children younger than 8 years and related theoretical issues were examined. For older children the multidimensional, hierarchical structure of self-concept is now well established. For younger children, however, a paucity of research and appropriate instruments has led to the belief that self-concept is poorly differentiated and that a general self-concept may not even exist. In individual interviews, 501 students in kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade completed the Self Description Questionnaire I (SDQ-I). At each grade level, confirmatory factor analyses identified all 8 SDQ-I scales, including General self-concept. With increasing age the fit of the 8-factor model improved, the size of correlations among the factors decreased, and self-concept became more differentiated. Appropriately measured self-concepts are better differentiated by young children than previously assumed.

A new, individual administration procedure for assessing multiple dimensions of self-concept for young children 5-8 years of age (Marsh, Craven, & Debus) was the basis of this study. We expanded this application in a multicohort-multioccasion (MCMO) study that provides simultaneous multicohort comparisons (crosssectional comparisons of different age cohorts) and longitudinal comparisons of the same children on multiple occasions. There was reasonable support for predictions that reliability, stability, factor structure, and the distinctiveness of the SDQ factors would improve with age (a between-group age cohort comparison) and from 1 year to the next (a longitudinal comparison), and that small gender differences were reasonably stable over age. Consistent with the proposal that children's self-perceptions become more realistic with age, Time 1 (Tl) teacher ratings were more highly correlated with student self-ratings at T2 than T1 and contributed to the prediction of T2 self-concept beyond effects mediated by T1 self-concepts. The results support and expand the surprisingly good support for the multidimensionality of self-concept responses for very young children using this procedure.

The purpose of this investigation is to investigate the effectiveness in enhancing academic selfconcept of an intervention delivered by primary school teachers and researchers. Subjects were 162 students from a primary school in metropolitan Sydney, Australia, who scored in approximately the lowest three quarters of their class on academic self-concept. The intervention was a combination of internally focused performance feedback and attributional feedback. The researcher-administered treatment produced modest enhancement of self-concept in target facets (reading and mathematics) and in related facets (school and general) but did not affect three areas of self-concept that were unrelated to the intervention. This treatment increased students' attributions to effort in success situations. The teacher-administered treatment did not significantly affect either self-concept or self-attributions. The findings (a) provide some support for the effectiveness of the researcher-administered treatment as an intervention to enhance selfconcept and (b) further indicate the importance of considering the multidimensionality of selfconcept in intervention studies.