The Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect and a National Policy of Within-School Ability Streaming: Alternative Frames of Reference

The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) was evaluated with 4,461 seventh to ninth graders in Singapore where a national policy of ability streaming is implemented. Consistent with the BFLPE, when prior achievement was controlled, students in the high-ability stream had lower English and mathematics...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:American educational research journal 2013-04, Vol.50 (2), p.326-370
Main Authors: Liem, Gregory Arief D., Marsh, Herbert W., Martin, Andrew J., McInerney, Dennis M., Yeung, Alexander S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ability grouping
Academic Ability
Academic Achievement
Academic education
Academic self concept
Achievement rating
Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect (BFLPE)
Comparative analysis
Concept Mapping
Educational policy
English (Second Language)
Ethnicity
Foreign Countries
Gender Issues
Grade 7
Grade 8
Grade 9
Homogeneous Grouping
Mathematics
Mathematics achievement
Modeling
National Programs
Observational frames of reference
Positive Attitudes
Secondary Education
Selection
Self Concept
Self Description Questionnaire II
Self esteem
Singapore
Social comparison
Student Attitudes
Teaching, Learning, and Human Development
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) was evaluated with 4,461 seventh to ninth graders in Singapore where a national policy of ability streaming is implemented. Consistent with the BFLPE, when prior achievement was controlled, students in the high-ability stream had lower English and mathematics self-concepts (ESCs and MSCs) and those in the lower-ability stream had higher ESCs and MSCs. Consistent with the local-dominance effect, the effect of stream-average achievement on ESCs and MSCs was more negative than—and completely subsumed—the negative effect of school-average achievement. However, stream-average achievement was stronger than, or as strong as, the more local class-average achievement. Taken together, findings highlight the potential interplay of a local dominance effect with variability and/or salience of target comparisons in academic self-concept formations.
ISSN:0002-8312
1935-1011
DOI:10.3102/0002831212464511