Academic achievement and self-concept: An analysis of causal predominance in a developmental perspective.

Causal relationships among academic achievement, self-concept of ability, and general self-esteem were examined for two cohorts of Norwegian school children. Measures of the three variables were collected when the students in the two cohorts were attending third and sixth grade and 18 months later. Four hypotheses were tested by a methodology developed in the frame of structural covariance models with latent variables by means of the LISREL VII program. The findings strengthened a further need for longitudinal studies examining relationships between academic achievement and self-concept in a developmental perspective