The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among specific domains of self-concept and domains of academic achievement for learning disabled children. Subjects were 109 intermediate grade students attending public schools in Indiana. All subjects had been classified by their school districts as LD and were currently receiving resource room services. Additionally, the relationship between actual self-concept scores and inferred self-concept scores was explored by asking resource room teachers to complete the Self-Description Questionnaire-1 (SDQ-1) as they believed each of their students would respond.The SDQ-1 was administered to assess the domains of self-concept, while achievement in reading, mathematics, and written language was operationalized as scores on the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery Test of Achievement (WJPB). Ability scores from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and WJPB achievement scores were collected from students' school files.Pearson correlation coefficients were computed to investigate the relationship among individual variables. Only one significant correlation (p<.0l) was found between domains of self-concept and domains of academic achievement. This low correlation (-.27) existed between reading self-concept and achievement in written language. Interestingly, every intercorrelation among the SDQ-1 domains was significant calling into question the purported factor structure of the SDQ-1 with this LD population.A canonical correlation analysis was used to investigate the associations among multiple variables, such as ability, self-concept domains and achievement domains. Since the link between ability and achievement has been supported in the literature, the intent of this analysis was to investigate the extent that self-concept contributed to achievement. Results of this analysis also suggested a significant relationship between ability and achievement;however, above and beyond ability, knowledge of self-concept scores did not add to the relationship with achievement.In addition to exploring the association among domains of self-concept and domains of achievement, this study also examined the relationship between actual and inferred self-concept scores. Results of a canonical correlation analysis supported a significant relationship between actual self-concept and inferred self-concept scores. It appeared that resource room teachers were accurately able to infer the self-concepts of their LD students. This agreement between self-report and teacher report of self-concept is consistent with previous research.In conclusion, the present investigation did not provide support for a relationship between domains of self-concept and academic achievement with this LD sample. The implications for results are discussed along with suggestions for future research in this area. / Department of Educational Psychology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/174962 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Barry, Christine T. |
| Contributors | Dean, Raymond S. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 88 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-in |
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