Same same but different: the role of subjective domain similarity in the longitudinal interplay among achievement and self-concept in multiple academic domains

Abstract

The present study examined the associations between grades and self-concept within and between four academic domains from an intraindividual perspective. Further, we explored whether students' subjective domain similarity moderated intraindividual between-domain effects of achievement on self-concept and vice versa. A sample of 756 Swiss high-school students reported on their academic self-concept in mathematics, German (native), English, and French on three measurement occasions across high school. Students reported on the subjective domain similarity. School administrators reported students' grades. Achievement in one domain had a positive effect on self-concept within the same domain and a negative effect on cuncurrent and later self-concept in other domains. Conversely, self-concept in one domain had a positive effect on achievement in the same domain and a negative effect on cuncurrent and later achievement in other domains. Further, subjective domain similarity attenuated the negative effect of achievement in one domain on self-concepts in another domain on the same measurement occasions. However, subjective domain similarity was not found to moderate the effect of achievement in one domain on change in self-concepts in another domain or vice versa.