The temporal ordering of depression, aggression, and victimization has important implications for theory, policy, and practice. For a representative sample of high school students (Grades 7-10; N = 3,793) who completed the same psychometrically strong, multiitem scales 6 times over a 2-year period, there were reciprocal effects between…

In this paper, we develop an information distortion model (IDM) of social class differences in self-beliefs and values. The IDM combines psychological biases on frame-of-reference effects with sociological foci on ability stratification. This combination is hypothesized to lead to working-class children having more positive math self-beliefs and…

The reciprocal effects model (REM) predicts a reciprocal relation between academic self-concept and academic achievement, whereby prior academic self-concept is associated with future gains in achievement, and prior achievement is related to subsequent academic self-concept. Although research in this area has been extensive, there has been a…

In this study, we tested the hypothesis that self-efficacy and self-concept reflect different underlying processes and both are critical to understanding long-term achievement outcomes. Although both types of self-belief are well established in educational psychology, research comparing and contrasting their relationship with achievement has been…

Extensive support for the seemingly paradoxical negative effects of school- and class-average achievement on academic self-concept (ASC)-the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE)--is based largely on secondary students in Western countries or on cross-cultural Program for International Student Assessment studies. There is little research testing the…

The internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model and dimensional comparison theory posit paradoxical relations between achievement (ACH) and self-concept (SC) in mathematics (M) and verbal (V) domains; ACH in each domain positively affects SC in the matching domain (e.g., MACH to MSC) but negatively in the nonmatching domain (e.g., MACH to…

Two student evaluation surveys of "best" and "worst" teaching were administered to a sample of Australian university students. Separate factor analyses of the two surveys revealed the same factors that had been identified in American settings, demonstrating the feasibility of transferring American surveys to an Australian…