Comparability of Self-Concept Among Learning Disabled, Normal, and Gifted Students

Using randomly formed groups of fourth-to seventh-grade learning disabled, normal, and gifted students, the comparability of representations of self-concept across groups was analyzed for the Sears and Coopersmith inventories. Additionally, mean differences across the three groups of students were calculated on self-concept subscales. Subscale representations of the construct were judged comparable across groups. Whereas a reliable linear trend on academic self-concept subscales favored gifted and normal students over learning disabled students, learning disabled children slightly exceeded gifted children on physical and social facets of self-concept from the Sears inventory only. Implications for validity research and evaluation studies are discussed.