Adolescent’s self-concept: Understanding the role of gender and academic competence

2012 IJRSP – Volume 1 Issue 2

Author/s:

Rath, Sangeeta
Utkal University, Odisha, India (sangeeta.rath@yahoo.com)

Nanda, Sumitra*
Utkal University, Odisha, India (snsumitrananda@gmail.com)

Abstract:

An attempt has been made to examine the effect of gender and academic competence on the self-concept of adolescents. The study adopted a 2 (academically competent versus academically less-competent adolescents) × 2 (boys versus girls) factorial design. In the present study, two hundred forty adolescents (120 academically competent adolescents securing 80% or more marks and 120 academically less-competent adolescents securing 50% or fewer marks) are randomly sampled from different urban colleges of Odisha. In each group of 120 adolescents, there are 60 boys and 60 girls. All the subjects are first year graduate students. The participants of all the four groups are compared with respect to their self-concept. The result indicated that academically competent adolescents have higher physical, moral, personal, family, social and overall self-concept than less-competent ones. The strength of association between personal self-concept and overall self-concept in boys is higher than the association found in girls. Similarly, the strength of association between physical self- concept and overall self-concept, as well as social self-concept and overall self-concept is higher in girls than that of the boys.

Keywords: self-concept; adolescent; gender differences; academic achievements; student competency

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsp.2012.v1i2.82

*Corresponding Author