There is a positive psychology revolution sweeping educational psychology, emphasizing how healthy, normal, and exceptional students can get the most from education. Positive self-beliefs are at the heart of this revolution. My self-concept research program represents a substantive-quantitative synergy, applying and developing new quantitative approaches to better address substantive issues with significant policy implications. Particularly in educational psychology, self-concept enhancement is a major goal. Self-concept is also an essential mediating factor that facilitates attaining other desirable outcomes. In education, for example, a positive academic self-concept is both a highly desirable goal and a means of facilitating subsequent academic accomplishments. However, the benefits of feeling positive about oneself concerning the choice, planning, persistence, and subsequent accomplishments, transcend traditional disciplinary and cultural barriers. Perhaps more than any other area within educational psychology, there are extensive international cross-cultural tests and support for the generalizability of the major theoretical models in the discipline. Self-concept research has also been a testing ground for developing new and evolving quantitative methodologies. My purpose here is to provide an overview of my self-concept research in which I address diverse theoretical and methodological issues with practical implications for research, policy, and practice. Highlights include:
· Extensions of the BFLPE (adverse effects of school-average achievement on self-concept) to include negative effects on student, teacher, and parent educational aspirations and expectations, the role of school-average SES, and phantom effects of school-average achievement on subsequent student achievement.
· Extensions of the REM (reciprocal relations between academic self-concept and achievement) juxtaposing cross-lag panel models with and without random intercepts and lag2 effects, and models of simultaneous (lag0) effects.
· Extensional of the I/E (internal/external frame-of-reference model) showing that high verbal achievement detracts leads to high verbal self-concept but lowers math self-concept (and vice-versa for math achievement) and how this explains in part so-called Gender Paradox in STEM coursework selection.
· An integrative model incorporating all three of these effects.
