Questioning the Reciprocal Effects Model of Academic Self-Concept and Achievement: A Reanalysis of a Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies and a Simulation

A recent meta-analysis claimed to provide evidence that academic self-concept and achievement have reciprocal prospective effects on each other (reciprocal effects model). However, prospective effects were estimated while adjusting for a prior measurement of the outcome, and this method is susceptible to spurious findings due to correlations with residuals and regression to the mean. Here we re-analyze the meta-analytic effects and show that different plausible models can support opposing claims: either that self-concept had an increasing or a decreasing effect on achievement, and vice versa. Consequently, claims beyond a positive cross-sectional correlation between academic self-concept and achievement, including the reciprocal effects model, can be questioned. The findings were validated by analyses of simulated data, which indicated that true prospective effects were not necessary for the observed meta-analytic associations. We further propose the extended skill development model (ESDM) as a more parsimonious alternative to the reciprocal effects model. The so called reciprocal effects model of academic self-concept and achievement might be wrongIn a recent aggregation of findings from several studies, a so called meta-analysis, researchers claimed to have found evidence that academic self-concept (that is, self-perceived academic competence) had an increasing effect on future academic achievement and that academic achievement, likewise, had an increasing effect on future academic self-concept. However, the used method of statistical analysis is known to often deliver defective results. In the present study, we analyzed the same data and found that the data can be claimed to show both an increasing and a decreasing effect of academic self-concept on future academic achievement. Due to these incongruent results, we believe that the claims in the previous meta-analysis lack solid support and can be challenged. There may still exist a correlation between academic self-concept and achievement, but correlations do not prove causal effects. We also carried out simulations, and these showed that results as in the challenged meta-analysis can be observed even without any true increasing effects between academic self-concept and achievement. In the present article, we also present something we call the extended skill development model (ESDM).