Reassessing psychometric techniques in exploration of a relational self

It has been argued that the application of self-report inventories in inves tigation of the self has permitted a set of 'esoteric psychometric qualitie s' (Bracken, 1992) to determine psychological understanding of the self-con cept. The desire to achieve solid psychometric foundations for measures of the self has meant that the self-concept is often measured as an independen t entity, separate from the contexts in which it is constructed. This artic le describes the development of a new measure of the self that takes greate r account of the way individuals ruminate their external actions to inform and maintain their self-image. An item pool designed to measure the social impact of the school context upon the self was tested on adolescent school pupils (n = 1,002) from eight contrasting secondary schools in the UK. Fact or analysis revealed six structurally independent constructs related to pup ils' school related self-perceptions. The ensuing scale revealed how it is possible to utilize psychometric techniques to produce more ecological mean s of investigating the self. The implications of this study for existing me asures of the self are then discussed.