Cognitive and Affective Components of Verbal Self-Concepts and Internal/External Frame of Reference Within the Multidimensional Verbal Domain

Abstract

Most researchers have studied students’ academic self-concept within native language and mathematics, indicating the multidimensional nature of academic self-concept. However, there is a shortage of studies that examined the twofold multidimensional structure of verbal self-concept within the internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model of two foreign languages. This study aims to examine affective and cognitive components of English and Russian self-concepts for defining the separation or conflation of these components within the I/E model and evaluate cognitive and affective components across gender. A total of 540 eighth-grade Azeri students participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated self-concept structure as twofold multidimensional, distinguishing affective and cognitive components as two different constructs. Study of the I/E model of two language self-concepts showed that Russian achievement correlated with Russian cognitive self-concept and English cognitive self-concept related to English achievement. One general verbal self-concept for different languages may not adequately represent multilingual learners and can produce misleading interpretations. The relationship between the two dimensions of self-concept in two target languages was invariant. The results of this study should encourage researchers to examine subject-specific self-concepts that conceptualize cognitive and affective dimensions of the self-concept and their relationships with achievement.

The stability of the twofold multidimensionality of academic self-concept: A study of Chinese secondary school students

“…Of the different types of the external criteria, the short-term educational outcome-academic achievement-has been the one most frequently used. Studies have reported that consistently in various academic domains, the competence and affect components of ASC have different relations with academic achievement among students at different stages of schooling and in various school domains, including students in primary schools (Arens et al, 2011: general school, verbal, and math;Arens and Preckel, 2018: verbal, math, and physical education;Lohbeck, 2019: verbal and math;Schneider and Sparfeldt, 2020: verbal and math) and in secondary schools (Abu-Hilal et al, 2013: math and science;Arens et al, 2014b: verbal and math;10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1001187 Frontiers in Psychology 04 frontiersin.org Kadir et al, 2017: verbal, math, and physics;Marsh et al, 2013: math and science;Karimova and Csapó, 2021: verbal and foreign language). For instance, with German primary school students, Arens et al (2011) found that consistently across three domains, namely general school, German, and math, the correlations between competence and achievement were doubled those between affect and achievement in the matching domains.…”

“…Defined as "a person's perception of himself formed through his experience with his environment and influenced especially by environmental reinforcements and significant others" (Shavelson et al, 1976, 411), self-concept (SC) is widely acknowledged as an important psychological construct, vital in all parts of human life, and it has been researched in a variety of fields, including education, psychology, sport sciences, mental health, and many more (Marsh and Craven, 2006;Onetti-Onetti et al, 2019;Karimova and Csapó, 2021;Henning et al, 2022;Melguizo-Ibáñez et al, 2022). For decades, empirical research has shown that having positive SC is beneficial for many areas of human functioning (Marsh et al, 2017): fighting against anxiety and distress, for strengthening confidence and resilience, and for being adaptive to handle complex problems and situations (Coopersmith, 1960;Harter, 1990;Dodgson and Wood, 1998;Sommer and Baumeister, 2002), and thus enables many human potentials (Marsh and Craven, 2006;Marsh and O'Mara, 2008).…”