Additional findings of interest
Of particular interest to me are the additional effects that schools can address
- Transfer students have lower overall self-esteem and thus need additional support from teachers as they acclimate to a new environment.
- The correlations between academic self-concept and achievement are greater than those between academic interest and academic achievement but the latter correlation does exist. This suggests that we need to put additional effort in to engaging students who are not interested in our subject matter.
- On the high-school level (as contrasted with the middle-school level) it has been shown that not only academic interest guides student course selection but that course choice is also reflective of the utility students see for application of the course to their future goals. This means that we also need to help students understand why our particular content area is important and how success in our class can help them meet individual goals.
- Suicide risk has been linked to measures of low self-esteem and students who perceive themselves as failing are between 1.5 and 3 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts or attempt suicide. Suicide is the second highest cause of death for adolescents in North America and the more attuned we are to students' levels of self-esteem, the more preventative power we can have in decreasing fatalities.
- On the whole, positive memories of self-esteem are linked with achievement based themes though negative memories of self-esteem are usually linked with social themes. This reflects on how students will remember our class and the content area they worked with in making future course selections or career decisions.
- Parental goals and personal levels of self-efficacy influence students' views as well. Thus, to better understand students' self-evaluative environment, we should also establish open communication and build relationships with parents, families, and other role models students may have.
- Though effects of academic self-concept are correlated to both standardized test scores and teacher assigned grades, the relationship is much stronger between academic self-concept and grades. This is a good concept for teachers to keep in mind when they design assessment materials or face the common dilemma of "teaching to the test".