Antecedent variables of the self concept of children who succeeded or failed in the high school entrance examinations

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to examinevariables anticipated to have impact on the self concept of10-12 year old youngsters who succeeded and failed in thehigh school entrance examinations. A large number of studentstake these examinations every year. With consistent increasesin the number of potential applicants each year, however,competition mounts and exams gain great importance. Thecompetitive nature of these exams, plus success expectationof parents and teachers, contribute to the pressures studentsare made to feel. The common view is that such createdpressures of entrance exams have negative impact on children'spsychological well-being. Up to nOi` however, no systematicresearch is known to have been conducted to find out howthese student feel about, before and after entrance exams.One particular point of interest is impact of these exams onthe self concept of youngsters. Does success or failure inentrance exams make a difference in their self concept? Whatare some important variables that contribute to the selfconcept of the success and failure groups?To anSHer these questions, a close systematicexamination of potential variables was needed. It is wi ththis purpose that the present study is conducted.Based on earlier research findings and informalobservations of the researcher, five main hypotheses wereformulated. It was expected that failure in high schoolentrance exams following high effort expenditure in preparationfor these exams, and high level of test anxiety wouldhave negative effect on children's self concept. It was alsoexpected that post exam academic achievement, actual and/orperceived parental child rearing attitudes (such asdemocratic, acceptance of the mother's home making role,~_E!.Lllarmony), and parent education would have positiveeffect on .. s.elf .. concept. Parental attitudes of over protectionand strict discipline were expected to show no effect.Fourty five students from the preparatory classes ofRobert College and sixty-four students from the preparatoryclasses of Ozel AtaLisesi, representing the successful andunsuccessful students in high school entrance exams,respectively, and their 109 mothers participated in thestudy. Four instruments were used in data collection. Theyare the Turkish forms of the (1) Parental Attitude ResearchInstrument, (2) Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale,(3)leS-t Anxiety Inventory, and (4) a questionnaire developedspecially for this research.In testing the first hypothesis of the study, selfconcept scores of exam success and exam failure after higheffort groups were compared by means of a t-test. Impact ofpost-exam school achievement, test anxiety, parental childrearing attitudes, and parent education on children's selfconcept were investigated using the stepwise multiple regressionanalysis. Additional analyses (ANOVA) were conducted fordifferences between the successful and unsuccessful entranceexam samples.t-test analysis showed that there was no differencebetween the self concept scores of the exam success and examfailure after high effort groups. Findings of the mul tipleregression analysis revealed that six of the fourteenvariables included in the analysis contributed significantly(R2) to the students self concept scores. They are testanxiety, sex of the student, mother's education, percei veddemocratic mother attitude, perceived mother attitude towardmarital harmony and post-exam school achievement. Analysisincluding the total sample yielded four predictors of selfconcept. Factors accounting for variance in self concept, inorder of importance, were test anxiety (10%), sex of thestudent in favor of females (5.1%), mother's education (4.6%)and mother's perceived democratic child rearing attitude(3.0%). Findings from two independent sample groups showedthat marital conflict has negative impact on the RobertCollege (successful) group's, but post-exam academicachievement has positive impact on the Ozel Ata Lisesi (unsuccessful)group's self concept scores.The two-way analyses of variance comparing schools onsix significant antecedent variables indicated that RobertCollege and Ozel Ata Lisesi differed in self concept scoresonly in terms of two variables, sex and perceived democraticattitude.Thus, three of the main hypotheses related to testanxiety, parental attitudes of democracy and equality, overprotection and strict discipline, and parent education werefully supported. The two hypotheses related to post-examacademic achievement and parental attitude toward maritalharmony were partially supported.There are three limitations of this study. They arerelated to (1) the sample size, (2) the procedure, and (3)the measurement of `effort` in exam preparation and selfconcept. To mitigate these limitations, in future research,it is recommended that: (1) sample sizes be large enough toinclude multiple variables in the regression analysis withoutviolating the assumption of the statistical technique, (2)the self concept scale be administered twice, a t thebeginning and end of the year, to examine the change studentsgo through the year after the exams, (3) for more reliablemeasurement of effort expenditure, parents and teachers beconsulted rather than the child, and an academic self conceptscale rather then a general self concept scale be used insuch a study. Finally, it is suggested that, for a moremeaningful assessment of the impact of failure experiencein the entrance exams, parents' and teachers' attitudes towardthese exams be taken into account and ceasured.