Self-concepts, domain values, and self-esteem: relations and changes at early adolescence.

We assessed how children's self-concepts of ability for mathematics, English, social, and physical skills activities, ratings of the importance of these activities, and general self-esteem change across the transition to junior high school. Three types of change were assessed: change in mean levels, change in stability, and change in relationships. Twice each year during the sixth and seventh grades, 1,450 children completed questionnaires. Mean levels of children's self-esteem were lowest immediately after the transition, but recovered during seventh grade. Self-concept of ability and importance ratings for math and sports activities showed linear declines. Self-concept of ability for social activities showed a cubic trend, but importance ratings for social activities declined in a linear fashion. Children's self-concepts of ability for math and English became less stable across the junior high transition, whereas beliefs about other activities and general self-esteem were more stable in seventh grade.

Assessing the validity of the achievement motive in the presence of random measurement error.

The presence of random measurement error in indicators of theoretical constructs biases observed estimates of relations among those constructs. Correcting for this bias is particularly important when random measurement error is substantial, or is substantially different for indicators of distinct constructs included in a theoretical model. Validity assessment in the case of thematic apperceptive measures of the achievement motive (TAT n Achievement) has been vulnerable to interpretive errors because these indicators of the achievement motive are typically much less reliable than indicators of other constructs to which the motive may be related, and no correction has been made for the bias introduced by such differential measurement error. Here we illustrate a causal modeling approach to validity assessment for TAT n Achievement that incorporates explicit true-score measurement models of theoretical constructs. We confirm the hypothesis that the achievement motive construct is positively related to work satisfaction in a representative sample of adult males in the United States, taken in 1976 (N = 413). Evidence for the discriminant validity of story content versus story length, an issue raised in the literature on the TAT, is also presented in this nomological network.