ACADEMIC-ACHIEVEMENT, SELF-CONCEPT, AND CONFORMITY TO SCHOOL NORMS - A DEVELOPMENTAL ANALYSIS

Relations among academic achievement, self-concept of ability, and con formity to student roles (learner role and pupil role) were examined f or two cohorts of Norwegian school children. Measures of the four vari ables were collected when the students in the two cohorts were attendi ng third and sixth grade and 18 months later. Relations between the va riables were explored by a methodology developed in the frame of struc tural covariance models with latent variables and carried out by means of the LISREL 8 program. Support for the assumptions of discriminabil ity and factorial invariance of the concepts across time were obtained independently from estimating the structural parameters. The results suggested a causal predominance of academic achievement over self-conc ept of ability for both cohorts, but also indicated a reciprocal relat ion between the two variables, Also, the results indicated that confor mity to the learner role is affected by achievement, but that such an effect does not manifest itself before the end of primary school.