Big Fish in a Big Pond: a study of academic self concept in first year medical students

BMC Medical Education

Research Article

Marjorie Seaton¹  Rhonda G Craven¹  Ian G Wilson²  Kirsty Jackman³ 

[1] Educational Excellence and Equity Research Program, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, 2571, Penrith, NSW, Australia;School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, 2571, Penrith, NSW, Australia;School of Psychology, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, 2571, Penrith, NSW, Australia;

关键词: Medical Student;    Academic Achievement;    Social Comparison;    Grade Point Average;    Causal Attribution;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-11-48

 received in 2010-11-16, accepted in 2011-07-27,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundBig-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) research has demonstrated that students in high-ability environments have lower academic self-concepts than equally able students in low-ability settings. Research has shown low academic self-concepts to be associated with negative educational outcomes. Social comparison processes have been implicated as fundamental to the BFLPE.MethodsTwenty first-year students in an Australian medical school completed a survey that included academic self-concept and social comparison measures, before and after their first written assessments. Focus groups were also conducted with a separate group of students to explore students' perceptions of competence, the medical school environment, and social comparison processes.ResultsThe quantitative study did not reveal any changes in academic self-concept or self-evaluation. The qualitative study suggested that the attributions that students used when discussing performance were those that have been demonstrated to negatively affect self-concept. Students reported that the environment was slightly competitive and they used social comparison to evaluate their performance.ConclusionsAlthough the BFLPE was not evident in the quantitative study, results from the qualitative study suggest that the BFLPE might be operating In that students were using attributions that are associated with lower self-concepts, the environment was slightly competitive, and social comparisons were used for evaluation.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Jackman et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.