Lit. Review

This past school year I was blessed with the privilege of watching a student grow in academics, self-esteem, self-efficacy and personality. Celeste has a middle of the road, dyslexia case that was magnified by her lack of confidence in her abilities. However, throughout the year her confidence grew and grew as she made strides in her learning. This made me wonder if self-esteem, self-efficacy and testing, go hand in hand with academic success in students.


I have always thought that one must have a confidence in themselves to truly excel in anything, but in the classroom students with learning disabilities need to believe in themselves more so than anyone else. After reviewing many research articles I still believe in what I first thought. While self-esteem is powerfully influenced by results achieved and appreciation shown by others from primary school on, it is also a good predictor of academic success. Adequate self-esteem is related to the capacity to cope with academic tasks by employing effective study methods and actively participating in the learning process, both of which are involved in achieving set goals (Pepi and Fraia and Alesi, 2006). Celeste had been retained in third grade, failed the TAKS test and failed third grade her second go-round, but was placed in fourth. I think that her lack of achievement in previous years was a major impact on her self-worth; therefore she lacked belief in herself, causing a bigger deficit in her ability to learn. Indeed the perception of how much one is worth and in what way is strictly related to school achievement during adolescence, with higher self-esteem being related to better school results ( Pepi and Fraia and Alesi, 2006). Davies and Brember preformed a study that found that feelings of worth or unworthiness could affect mathematics and reading performance of individuals forming their self-image while receiving feedback from others (Helm, 2007). Specifically students with a severe learning disability such as dyslexia self-esteem can play a vital role in their success. Since many students with dyslexia have a difficult time with “keeping up” with the rest of their classmates on the progress of learning, they tend to retreat and question their ability. I am sure many of them wonder what is going, they don’t understand. Morgan’s study found that , when dyslexic children fail to keep up at school, their self-esteem drops as they begin to question their academic abilities (Alexander-Passe, 2006) sometimes causing the students to act out in inappropriate ways. A child’s perceived image of himself or herself will guide that child’s academic achievement (Sze and Valentin, 2006). Thus causing students to take into consideration what others can do and what they can’t causing them to give up quickly because “why try it, if you can’t”. Therefore, children experiencing poor academic performance in school are more likely to continue with learning problems because they do not believe they can do better (Sze and Valentin, 2006) According to Helm (2007) Legum and Hoare performed a study that linked academic performance and self-esteem by giving the students counseling and support to make better educational choices. Within this study they saw an increase in students’ academic performance causing student to obtain a nine-point grade point average increase. Apparently, self-esteem creates optimistic and pessimistic students. The results for academic achievement reveal a positive correlation with optimism and a negative correlation with pessimism (El-Anzai, 2005) So not only is the student not believing that they can accomplish tasks, but low self-esteem creates negative attitudes about things related to school. El-Anzai (2005) states there are a significant relationship between academic achievement and self-esteem and that it agrees with different studies as well. Anxiety plays a key factor in students’ ability to work well. Some students get so upset because they don’t believe in themselves that they can’t even remotely learn new concepts because they are too overwhelmed. Anxiety is one of the obstacles blocking high academic achievement in adolescence, since anxiety plays a role in reducing some factors that help to increase academic achievement (El-Anzi, 2005). Not only is it self-esteem that is affected but the self-esteem carries over to the student’s self-efficacy which appears to be in the same category, thus causing many students with less belief in themselves to not give a 100% in academic learning and tasks.

Students whose self-efficacy for reading is low often resist reading or apathetically go through the motions of learning to read. In contrast, the same students often exert considerable effort, tenacity, and discipline in activities they like and in which they feel self-efficacious, such as athletics or drawing (McCabe and Margolis, 2001). So, since some students feel they aren’t good at learning, they focus and put extreme effort into things they think they are good at. While at the same time pretend to try to learn, yet they aren’t really trying, so as a teacher who knows what they could accomplish if they did put a little effort into learning. Self-efficacious students participate more readily, work harder, persist longer, and have fewer adverse emotional reactions when they encounter difficulties than do those who doubt their capabilities (McCabe and Margolis, 2001). Nichols and Utesch (1998) state that individuals will low self-efficacy will avoid activities that they believe are beyond their capabilities, so they choose easier task so that chances for success are greater. Producing the idea that self-efficacy affects student motivation relating to academic work. Nichols and Utesch (1998) concur with this idea by using the research based upon Ames (1994) and Nichols and Miller (1994) found that students’ self-perceptions of ability are positively related to achievement and student motivation. Ried and Davis and Saunders and Williams and Williams (2005) find that students with higher academic self-efficacy regardless of earlier achievement or ability, work harder and persist longer; have better learning strategies, such as personal goal setting or time monitoring, and are less likely to engage in risky behaviors.


As I was reading many of the articles relating to my topic several times standardized testing was brought up, it seems that testing does nothing to benefit a student’s self-esteem, if anything it hinders it. Harlen & Crick (2003) refer to a test that was completed based on standardized testing , as well as extreme test anxiety, the impact on the self-esteem of those who did not meet their own or others’ expectations was often devastating. An eight year study was completed on primary school children by Davies and Brember, the study began two years prior to the nationalized test. The greatest change seen within the students coincided with the introduction of the tests. The initial drop in self-esteem was related to the circumstances surrounding the introduction the test for Year 2 children (Harlen and Crick, 2003). This suggests that before the test were introduced; low achieving students were no more likely to have low self-esteem than high achieving students. But after the introduction the low achievers had a lower self-esteem than their higher achieving classmates (Harlen and Crick, 2003). Not only does just a student receiving a failing grade impact them, but the attitude and pressure that teachers placed on the students, caused great anxiety. The anxiety that students felt was a consequence of being exposed to greater risk as performance become more important in the eyes of the teachers. They concluded that assessment had severely reduced the roll in helping learning and became concerned only with the achievement as measured by testing and there was evidence that students were all too aware of this (Harlen and Crick, 2003). Sadly, student’s judgments about being smart or stupid were based on the results of the national standardized testing. This became part of the classroom climate, labels ready to be placed on students when results were announced ( Harlen and Crick, 2003) This was a massive blow to many students self-esteem and efficacy, because after taking practice tests many students knew the outcome of the real test and had ceased to strive against the inevitable, writing themselves off as learners (Harlen and Crick, 2003) Low achievers were not motivated, refused the test and became disruptive within classrooms. The evaluation based on the test and teacher’s evaluation began the student’s construction of their identity. So, if your identity is negative naturally your self-esteem would plummet. And of course this would impact the students’ ability to excel in academics. Not only did the teacher and student know the category that the student was placed in but so do their peers. Students who are compared unfavorably and publicly with their peers have low self-esteem in relation to learning, avoid risks and use less effective and more superficial learning strategies. Not only do their own perceptions of themselves as learners suffer but this perception becomes shared by their peers (Harlen and Crick, 2003). Testing does nothing for a student’s self-esteem, nor does our society for pushing the test. Testing has a direct effect on a student’s belief in themselves, which makes a change in the students work effort, and attitude about school in itself.


After reviewing the literature I have discovered that there is a great need for students to become more self-efficacious, gain higher self-esteem and motivated. Many things can attribute to an individual’s self-esteem, but research shows that self-esteem can impact student achievement in academia. Now, I would like to know what techniques could be used to improve a student’s own perception based on academics. What more can we do to promote better self-esteem, to improve each student's academic success?







Alexander-Passe, N. (2006). How Dyslexic Teenagers Cope: An Investigation of Self-Esteem, Coping and Depression. Dyslexia. 12, 256-275. Retrived from EBSCO 26 July, 2007.

El-Anzi, F. (2005). Academic, Achievement and its Relationship With Anxiety, Self-Esteem, Optimism, and Pessimism in Kuwaiti Students. Social Behavior and Personality. 33.1, 95-104.
Retrieved from EBSCO database 27 July, 2007.

Harlen, W. and Crick, R. (2003). Testing and the Motivation for Learning. Assessment in Education. 10.2, 169-207. Retrieved from EBSCO database 27 July, 2007.

Helm, C. (2007). Teacher Dispositions Affecting Self-Esteem and Student Performance. The Clearing House. 109-111. Retrieved from EBSCO database 27 July, 2007

McCabe, P. and Margolis, H. (2001). Enhancing the Self-Efficacy of Struggling Readers. The Clearing House. 75.1, 45-49. Retrieved from ERIC database 24 July, 2007

Nichols, J. and Utesch, W. (1998). An Alternative Learning Program: Effects on Student Motivation and Sef-Esteem. The Journal of Educational Research. 91.5, 272-277. Retrieved from JSTOR database 27 July, 2007 .

Pepe, A. and Faria, L. and Alesi, M. (2006) Personal Conceptions of Intelligence, Self-Esteem, and School Achievements in Italian and Portuguese Students. Adolescence. 41.164, 615-631. Retrieved from EBSCO database 27 July, 2007.

Reid, M. and Davis, L. and Saunders, J. and Williams,T. and Williams, J. ( 2005). Academic Self-Efficacy among African American Youths: Implications for School Social Work Pratice. National Association of Social Workers. 27.5, 5-14. Retrieved from EBSCO database 26 July, 2007.

Sze, S. and Valentin, S. (2006). Self-Concept and Children with Disabilities. Education. 127.4, 552-557. Retrieved from the EBSCO database 27 July, 2007.

Wigley, S. (2004). Assessment of Morale in Further Education Students Studying for A-level Examinations. Journal of Further and Higher Education. 28.4, 423-434. Retrived from EBSCO 26 July, 2007.