Browsing by Author "Jäppinen, Petra"

The aim of this study is to find out how much teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of student affect the students’ mathematical and verbal self-concept. The study examines how parents’ and teachers’ perceptions differ and how much impact students support for learning has. In addition to teachers’ and parents’ perceptions the study also takes into account students’ actual performance in math and reading, to see their effect on students’ self-concepts. Self-concept refers to all concepts that one has about oneself as a subject and an object. Because of self- concepts multidimensionality, this study examines verbal self-concept and math self-concept separately. The participants of this study are 1247 sixth graders from Finland, their parents and teachers. Measures in this study were teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of student as a learner, students self-concepts from math and reading, the support that student had for learning, and the actual achievement in math and reading. The methods used in this study are paired sample t-test, linear regression and multivariate. The results showed that parents had more positive perceptions about their child than teachers had, and child’s support had negative impact on both adults’ perceptions. Teachers’ and parents’ perceptions had an impact both on child’s math self-concept and verbal self-concept, when child’s actual achievement was taken in consideration. However, adding the other academic self-concept both in math and verbal removed adults’ perceptions impact in regression analysis. When multivariate analysis was used mathematical self-concept, actual achievement in reading, parents’ perception and intensified support had an effect on child’s verbal self-concept. Special support and teachers’ perception had no effect. In multivariate analysis about math self-concept all but intensified support had an effect. In conclusion, this study proved that parents’ and teachers’ perceptions have an effect both on students’ math and verbal self-concept although students themselves have the biggest impact. Also, unlike other studies, this study found positive correlation between verbal and math self-concept.