This study examined and analyzed selected middle school teachers' perceptions of grade retention, and informed teachers about current and past research on grade retention. Through analysis of teacher interviews and using a Likert scale instrument, responses indicated that teachers continue to support and to use retention when students do not master required objectives for promotion. Because of the new Florida retention policy and the No Child Left Behind policy, it was critical to measure teachers' levels of understanding and perceptions of grade retention. Their perceptions gave insight into their thoughts and beliefs about the practice. Survey responses of 326 teachers in five selected middle schools in Florida and ten interviews clearly indicated that teachers believe children should be retained. A majority, nearly 83%, disagreed that students should not be retained. Although suspension and attendance have bearing, over 76% of teachers agreed that poor academics were the major reason for retention. Over 65% of teachers indicated that grade retention allows students who are behind academically to "catch-up" with peers. In addition, nearly 39% disagreed that retention is harmful to a child's self-concept/self-image. However, nearly 80% of teachers agreed grade retention affects a child's self-esteem. Data also indicated 56% of students who are more than two grades behind should not be retained. A chi-square statistics test used to measure significant differences based on teachers' years of teaching experience, grade level taught, race of teacher and socioeconomic status of the students, found significant differences only for student socioeconomic status. Although students have been retained since one-room schoolhouses, research on effectiveness of retention clearly points to instead of practicing grade retention, teachers, administrators, and parents need to analyze data in greater depth. Without more studies and analysis, teachers, administrators, and parents will continue a practice research has found harmful instead of beneficial to students. Educators must find a way to ensure that every child experiences academic success. Each educator must devise methods of working with students before they fail a grade. Tutoring, remediation, mentoring, small group work, after school programs, Saturday school, and summer school can help children learn.

This dissertation deals with the attitudes and self-concept of students learning Arabic at university in Indonesia connected to their ability in Arabic speaking and writing. / Islam and the Arabic language have had a profound influence on Indonesian life and culture. As the language of Islam, Indonesian Muslims begin learning Arabic at an early age. A compulsory subject in madrasas, pesantrens, and Islamic universities, the Arabic language is also offered in public schools and universities. Despite its accessibility as a subject, learners' competency in Arabic remains generally poor, even after many years of language instruction. This is particularly true of the productive skills domain. While results in grammar tend to be very good, students' skills in spoken and written Arabic are generally weak. In order to identify ways Arabic language learning in Indonesia might be strengthened, it would be helpful to explore factors that may lie behind the specific discrepancies observed in the skills of Indonesian learners of Arabic. As such, this study aims to investigate if there is a relationship between students' attitudes and self-concept the Arabic language and their skills in written and spoken Arabic. Do attitudes and self-concept significantly affect students' Arabic writing and speaking skills? Beyond this initial question, this study also explores whether students' language abilities might be differentiated by demographic factors and social variables. In this way, one could gain a deeper understanding of how attitudes and self-concept might affect students’ Arabic writing and speaking skills. The results of the study revealed that a positive attitudes towards Arabic does not correlate positively to their writing ability; however, a positive attitudes towards Arabic does correlate positively to their speaking ability. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the students have a neutral self-concept. Self-concept does not show any significant correlation with their Arabic writing and speaking ability. Regarding their language abilities, the students demonstrated moderate ability in Arabic writing, and in speaking they exhibited good ability. Demographic factors such as gender, ethnicity, years of studying Arabic and learning institution did not demonstrate an effect on their speaking ability. Finally, this study could not find any correlation between students’ attitudes and self-concept with their abilities in Arabic speaking and writing.

The aim of the thesis on the topic of Self-concept in adolescence is to clarify the construct of self-concept from the perspective of personality psychology, because self-concept is an individual specific characteristic of human personality and its meaning is unquestionable. In the course of human ontogenesis, self-conception gradually develops, and forms based on acquired knowledge about itself and has its differences in each developmental period. The work is focused on the period of adolescence and therefore also presents typical features of self-concept in adolescents. The end of compulsory schooling is an important milestone in the life of adolescents, which relates to the process of choosing a profession that his work is associated with school success. The empirical part focuses on finding out whether there is a relationship between the self-concept of school success and the choice of future profession in adolescents. In this respect, it is essential that the way in which adolescents experience and evaluate their own school success can affect the career choice process. The objectives and research questions were set for the quantitative research. A standardized SPAS questionnaire examining the self-concept of school success was used as a diagnostic tool to obtain data, as well as a...

The problem of this study was to determine some relations between changes in reading skills and changes in certain selected aspects of self-concept accompanying a remedial-reading program for elementary school boys with low reading ability and reasonably normal intelligence.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of career group counseling in raising the self-concept of at-risk high school students. The following subgroups were represented in the sample: male and female students, white and non-white ethnic groups, and students from sophomore, junior, and senior classifications. Two groups of students in the Lewisville Independent School District meeting the criteria for at-risk as defined by House Bill 1010 were administered a pretest and posttest using the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale. The experimental group was from the Lewisville Learning Center. The control group was students enrolled in the Coordinated Vocational Academic Education (CVAE) classes at Lewisville High School. A treatment sample of 25 students received career group counseling. A nontreatment sample of 25 students did not receive any group counseling. The t-test for independent samples was used to analyze the data. The pretests for the experimental and control groups showed no significant difference at the .05 level. The treatment sample received 30 hours of group counseling in the Fall semester of 1994. At the end of 30 hours of counseling a posttest was administered to the treatment sample and to the control sample. The t-test for independent samples was used to analyze the data. While career group counseling appeared to impact the students in the experimental group, the limitations of sample size and population may have effected the results. The treatment was significant at the .05 level and the null hypothesis was rejected. The findings showed that career group counseling was not an effective tool for increasing positive self-concept. It is concluded that self-concept was not effectively enhanced through group interaction conducted by the school system in this study. Further research is recommended.

The research problem of this study was to determine the pretest and posttest cluster scores of high school students in a theater class as measured by the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale.

This study was conducted to investigate whether cognitive variables (as measured by six self-report inventories) covaried with changes in behavior following group assertiveness training as postulated by several assertiveness training theorists and practitioners. Statistical analysis of the data did not support any of the hypotheses. No significant differences were found between the groups on any of the self-report measures or the behavioral ratings, although experimental group subjects consistently scored higher (in the predicted direction) on all self-report measures or were rated higher than placebo group subjects. The hypotheses that experimental group subjects would exhibit significantly higher levels of self-reported assertiveness, self-acceptance, self-esteem, and self-confidence than placebo group subjects were rejected. The hypothesis that the experimental group would exhibit a significantly greater shift toward self-reported internal locus of control than the placebo group was rejected. The hypothesis that the experimental group would exhibit significantly larger decreases in levels of self-reported anxiety than the placebo group was also rejected. Furthermore, no support was found for the hypothesis that experimental group subjects would exhibit significantly higher levels of objectively-rated assertive behavior than placebo group subjects. An examination of the data revealed substantial improvements on each of the six self-report measures for subjects in both groups. These data were treated statistically with a one-tailed t-test for correlated means. The t-test data indicated that both groups improved significantly on all cognitive variable measures from pretest to posttest.

La presente investigación tuvo por objetivo analizar la relación entre la funcionalidad familiar y el autoconcepto académico en un grupo de adolescentes de una provincia norte del Perú. Participaron 177 estudiantes (55,4%, mujeres y 44,6% hombres), cuyas edades fluctúan entre 12 y 19 años (M=14,32 años, DE=1,235), los instrumentos utilizados fueron la Escala de Apgar- Familiar de Smilkstein (AFF) y la Escala de Autoconcepto Académico (EAA); los mismos que fueron sometidos a análisis psicométricos de validez y consistencia interna obteniéndose resultados aceptables. Entre los resultados principales se obtuvo que la variable funcionalidad familiar está asociada positiva y significativamente con la variable autoconcepto académico. Asimismo, se encontró una relación positiva significativa y moderada (rs > ,25) entre la funcionalidad familiar y la dimensión de autoeficacia académica de la variable autoconcepto académico y una relación positiva significativa y baja (rs < ,25) entre la funcionalidad familiar y la dimensión de rendimiento percibido de la variable autoconcepto académico. Se concluye que en la medida que los estudiantes perciban su funcionalidad familiar, será la impresión de sí mismos en el ámbito académico. / This research aimed to analyze the relationship between family functionality and academic self-concept in a group of teenagers from a northern province of Peru. 177 students participated (women 55,4%, men 44,6%) whose ages range from 12 to 19 years (M=14,32 years, DE=1,235), the instruments used were the Smilkstein Family Scale (AFF) and the Academic Self-Concept Scale (EAA); these were subjected to psychometric analyses of internal validity and consistency obtaining acceptable results. Among the main results was obtained that the variable family functionality is positively and significantly associated with the variable academic self-concept. In addition, a significant and moderate positive relationship (rs > ,25) was found between family functionality and the dimension of academic self-efficacy and a significant and low positive relationship (rs < ,25) between the family functionality and the perceived performance dimension of the academic self-concept variable. In conclusion, the extent that students perceive their family functionality will be the impression of themselves in the academic field. / Tesis

The diploma thesis deals with selected issues of self-concept of a primary school teacher. The theoretical part deals mainly with the issue of concepts related to self-concept and their clarification. The empirical part had the task of tracing important moments, people and phases leading to the formation of attitudes and ideas of what teachers have about themselves. During professional development, the construction of teachers' identity and self-confidence was crucial. The survey was qualitatively oriented and carried out through the analysis of the life history of teachers. By open coding, the narration of the respondents was divided into 5 main categories. The research of life stories led to expected and surprising findings and resulted in a draft recommendation for undergraduate teachers' training. KEYWORDS Self-concept, teacher, professional identity, key skills, self-confidence

Previous research has shown relationships between ethnic identity and other aspects of the self-concept such as efficacy and self-esteem, particularly among minority groups. This study examined the relationships between ethnic identity, collective self-esteem and academic self-efficacy. These relationships were examined among an overall sample of 144 respondents, and among two distinct samples consisting of Black and White respondents, respectively. Results showed positive correlations between ethnic identity and academic self-efficacy, collective self-esteem and academic self-efficacy, and between ethnic identity and collective self-esteem for the overall sample. Similar results were found for the sample consisting of Black respondents only. For the White sample, a positive correlation was found between collective self-esteem and ethnic identity only. The study further examined the relationships between academic self-efficacy and the ethnic identity and collective self-esteem subscales. For the overall sample, positive correlations were found between academic self-efficacy and the ethnic identity search and commitment subscales. Correlations for this sample were also found between academic self-efficacy and the membership self-esteem and private collective self-esteem subscales. For the Black sample, correlations were found between academic self-efficacy and the ethnic identity search and commitment subscales. Furthermore, there were correlations between academic self-efficacy and the membership self-esteem subscale, as well as the private collective self-esteem subscale for Black respondents. For the White sample, no relationships were found between academic self-efficacy and any of the collective self-esteem and ethnic identity subscales. Furthermore, limitations of the current study were identified and, subsequently, recommendations for future research were made. It was recommended that future research include other aspects of the self-concept such as personal self-esteem and actual academic achievement, so as to determine the relationships between these and the variables examined in the current study. / Dissertation (Master of Arts)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted