Developing Self-Concept to Success in School

by Merry

Each student studies at school as a unique individual. There is tremendous interest to know more about their uniqueness by knowing their self-concept and self-esteem and also its impact in education today. “High self-esteem and a positive self-concept are important characteristics of children’s well being” (Donnellan, et al. 2006; Harter, 2006 in Santrock, 2008), but when we talk about academic achievement, self-concept is a better factor for being success at school. Marsh (1992) in Huitt (2009) showed that the relationship of self-concept to school achievement is very specific. It is time for the educators to pay attention with students’ self-concept to make them have a maximal school performance.

Most of all, we should be able to differ between self-esteem and self-concept of students. Santrock (2008) demonstrates that investigators sometimes use the terms self-esteem and self-concept interchangeably or do not precisely define them, but there is a meaningful difference between them. Self-concept is a cognitive or thinking aspect of our social, physical and academic competence. It refers to domain-specific evaluations of the self. It describes how good one is in math, language, science, etc. “Self-esteem is the affective or emotional aspect of self and generally refers to how we feel about or how we value ourselves (one's self-worth)” (Huitt, 2009). For example, a girl might perceive that she is not simply a person, but a very good person.

“The relationship of measures such as self-concept and self-esteem were only weakly correlated” (Hansford, et al. 1982 in Huitt, 2009). “In fact, there are only moderate correlations between school performance and self esteem, and these correlations do not suggest that high self esteem produces better school performance” (Baumeister & others, 2003 in Santrock 2008). Having high self-esteem will make the students have some positive things, but it also has some negative things for them. For instance, the positive things that it will happen are the students will feel confidence with themselves, they can express their opinions, and even they will have greater initiative. Whereas, the negative things that it will happen are they might have some positive perceptions in themselves but actually it is not match with the reality and they will give some excuses of their failures. This case represented by the title of a book, “Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, Or Add” (Skyes, 1995 in Santrock 2008).

A good school achievement is the result, which every family hopes from the children. Hamachek (1995) in Huitt (2009) asserts that self-concept and school achievement are related. Self-concept is the way to see ourselves and how people look at you and tell you what you are for them. This thing is more important to make students know the fact of them. It can be very specific on every subject that it has relatively strong relationship between self-concept and academic success.  

According to Chaika (1998) these are the ways for educators to improve students’ self-concept. First, in the beginning of year activity, asking students to do interview with someone who doesn’t already know well. Then they will interview each other. It will make the students get a new point of view from others. Second is accentuating the positive, breaking the class into groups, all the students in the group tell all the positive things they can about that person. Third is write yourself a letter. At the end of the school year, asking students to write themselves a letter and also the goals they would like to accomplish by this time next year. No one will read its letter besides themselves so they can write anything they want.

Education in today’s world has a big responsibility to make students have a maximal school performance. School is the place for students to study and develop their characters. Educators at all levels are under pressure to make students think more, learn faster, and hopefully become a better generation for the future. Developing students’ self-concept is one of the ways for making them to success in school.

References

Chaika, G. (1998). Ten Activities To Improve Students’ Self-Concepts. Retrieved January 18, 2011, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson085.shtml

Huitt, W. (2009). Self-concept and self-esteem. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved January 18, 2011, from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/regsys/self.html

Santrock, J. W. (2008). Adolescence: Twelfth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Santrock, J. W. (2008). Children: Tenth edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.