Self-concept and home environment as they related to academic achievement of fifth grade students in St. John's, Newfoundland

Murrin, John Edward (1989) Self-concept and home environment as they related to academic achievement of fifth grade students in St. John's, Newfoundland. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This study was concerned with the identification and examination of two out-of-school variables, self-concept and home environment, that relate to academic achievement, a topic of much debate in the province of Newfoundland. -- Self-concept was considered to be multifaceted and hierarchical for the purpose of this study, and was measured by the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ). The home environment was considered in terms of the educational environment that exists there, and was measured by an interview schedule modified from that first presented by Dave (1963). Academic achievement was determined by the standardized scores derived from end-of-year teacher-made tests in language arts and mathematics. -- A total of 44 grade V students who attended an elementary school in St John's during the 1986-87 school year were involved in the study. The corresponding teacher and parent(s) also completed the SDQ. They were instructed to complete this questionnaire as if they were the child in question. Parent(s) were also interviewed to provide information about the educational environment that existed in the home. -- A total of seven hypotheses and six questions were examined in this study. Six of the hypotheses were supported by the findings presented. -- The Index of Educational Environment (I.E.E.), which was defined as a measure of the educational environment that exists in the home, was correlated with academic achievement, explaining anywhere from 50 to 57 percent of the variance. Dave's (1963) study suggested that approximately 64 per cent of the variance in academic achievement could he explained by the educational environment in the home. Correlations between academic achievement and the I.E.E. were found to be lower than those between academic achievement and each of Social Class, combined parent's occupation, and combined parent's education. This finding, opposite to that hypothesized, indicates that sociological status characteristics were more important in determining students' academic achievement than was I.E.E. Using multiple regression analysis, the second hypothesis was accepted as the results showed that academic achievement would be predicted to a greater extent when I.E.E. was combined with sociological status characteristics. The third hypothesis was also supported and clearly showed that students' total academic achievement correlated significantly higher with students' academic self-concept than with nonacademic self-concept. Hypothesis four was only partially supported since the correlation of nonacademic self-concept with achievement was raised significantly when I.E.E. was added, however, addition of the I.E.E. did not significantly increase the already high correlation between academic self-concept and achievement. Correlations calculated between achievement in language arts and mathematics and self-concepts in these subjects supported Hypothesis five as the correlations, for both boys and girls, were significantly greater than zero at the 0.01 level. The testing of Hypotheses six and seven, which received only partial support, demonstrated that teachers and parents were able to infer quite well with the self-concepts of students in language arts, in mathematics, and in all school subjects. However, they were less able to predict students' self-concepts in nonacademic areas which suggested that self-concept is derived from objective reality. Thus, self-concept is the result rather than the cause of achievement.

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