Self-concept of high school students in China: Confirmatory factor analysis of longitudinal data

This study examined the factor structure of high school students' responses to the Verbal, Math, Academic, and General self-concept scales of the Self -Description Questionnaire-II (SDQ-II) administered in China at two time po ints. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that these students clearly distinguished the four scales. Math and Chinese self-concepts were positiv ely correlated with Academic self-concept and with General self-concept. Ho wever, Math and Chinese self-concepts were negatively correlated with each other. The stability coefficients for each construct over time was high. Th e inclusion of Chinese and math achievement scores as well as teachers' rat ings of general academic performance in CFA models further confirmed the va lidity of the multidimensional constructs by demonstrating a high correlati on with each matching self-concept construct. All patterns of relations wer e replicated in a second collection of data. 6 months later. The results su pport the multidimensionality and domain specificity of academic self-conce pts found in Western countries.