The Relative Potential of Self-Concept and Intelligence as Predictors of Achievement

The importance of motivation as a predictor of school achievement

“…Addressing academic self-concept, Schicke and Fagan (1994) as well as Gose et al (1980) demonstrated additional variance explanation independently of intelligence in samples of elementary and middle-school students. Investigating intrinsic motivation, Gottfried (1990) as well as Lloyd and Barenblatt (1984) found an incremental validity beyond intelligence for elementary and high school students, respectively.…”

“…For some motivational constructs it has been shown that, above and beyond intelligence, motivation explains variance in academic achievement (e.g., Gose, Wooden, & Muller, 1980;Schicke & Fagan, 1994;Spinath et al, 2006). Addressing academic self-concept, Schicke and Fagan (1994) as well as Gose et al (1980) demonstrated additional variance explanation independently of intelligence in samples of elementary and middle-school students.…”

Predicting school achievement from general cognitive ability, self-perceived ability, and intrinsic value

“…We are aware of two studies that explicitly addressed this question with regard to self-perceived ability and investigated either 6th graders (Gose, Wooden, & Muller, 1980) or 4th, 6th, and 8th graders (Schicke & Fagan, 1994). Unfortunately, these studies had rather small samples (N = 96 and N = 121).…”

“…On grounds of the present findings and in view of the literature, we do not share these authors' pessimistic view. There is sufficient evidence for the incremental contribution of ability self-perceptions (Gose et al, 1980;Schicke & Fagan, 1994), intrinsic values (e.g., Gottfried, 1985Gottfried, , 1990Lloyd & Barenblatt, 1984), and other motivational constructs (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992;Rindermann & Neubauer, 2001;Spence et al, 1989;Wong & Csikszentmihalyi, 1991) to school achievement over intelligence. Nevertheless, the relatively small unique contributions of some motivational variables such as intrinsic values might foster the notion that motivation is of negligible importance.…”

Academic self-concept and teachers' perceptions of normal, mentally retarded, and learning disabled elementary students

“…Psychologists and educators have hypothesized that the development of a sound academic self-concept is an important variable in learning (Gose, Wooden, & Muller, 1980;Yauman, 1980). The academic self-concept reflects how the child views his or her own learning abilities in relation to other classmates.…”