An Alternative Interpretation of the Relationship between Self-Concept and Mathematics Achievement: Comparison of Chinese and US Students as a Context

Alternative explanations for the Confucian Asian high performance and high self doubt paradox: Commentary on “Unforgiving Confucian culture: A breeding ground for high academic achievement, test anxiety and self-doubt?” by Lazar Stankov

“…In other words, the model Learning and Individual Differences 20 (2010) purports that the higher the stress in the immediate environment for individuals to learn a task, the higher perceived intellectual effort required would be generated, which may result in the development of lower self-concept for the learning task. The same model (Wang & Lin, 2008) also predicts that in parallel, the higher the stress to learn the task, the higher the actual intellectual effort is exerted on the task which in turn may lead to higher achievement. The model is supported by empirical evidence in comparative studies of China and the US in mathematics learning.…”

“…The model is supported by empirical evidence in comparative studies of China and the US in mathematics learning. An alternative explanation to the paradoxical findings of such large scale cross-cultural comparative studies as PISA and TIMSS referred to by Stankov could perhaps be found in Wang and Lin's (2008) model. The Confucian Asian countries tend to have high expectations on academic achievement on children and great tendency to attribute academic success to effort (e.g.…”

“…In their model, Wang and Lin (2008) theorised that self-concept is the individual's perception of intellectual effort required for learning instead of his/her perceived level of performance. Further, self-concept development is theorised as a combined result of several sources including (a) the inter-and intrapersonal references among peers and within themselves, and (b) the immediate social context for the learning tasks, which comprises such factors as family and teacher expectations, level of difficulty of the curriculum, and the amount of competition.…”

The Issue of Equity and Quality of Education in Hong Kong

“…Rote learning in the Asian context includes understanding, and actually many Asian teachers and learners view rote learning as a means of learning for understanding and for enhanced understanding, and in this case, we can learn from the Asian way of learning by rote; only mechanical rote learning (without understanding) is wrong. Wang and Lin (2008) argue that many learning psychology theories can only apply within a culture. For example, as compared to the American learners, the Asian math learners have in general a lower self-concept but higher academic achievements.…”

Untitled

“…Palocsay, 2005;Gayles 2004;Richter, 2006 ;Schniederjans, and Kim 2005;Yousef, 2009) also draws attention. The relations between academic achievement and academic self-concept seem to be strong outside of these variables (Chowdhury & Pati, 1997;Collins, Hanges & Locke,2004;Wang and Lin, 2008) and achievement motivation and the concept of safe seem to affect academic achievement directly or indirectly according to the findings of many studies (Tella, 2007;Broussard, 2002;Abouserie, 1995., Wilkins, 2006. A successful student is a student who can balance the social and academic aspects of school effectively and a goal-oriented and internally motivated one who is also socially adequate (Ellis and Worthington, 1994;Pintrich and De Groot, 1990;Rench and 1992;Scheuermann, 2000).…”