Classroom factors and student characteristics predicting students' use of achievement standards during ability...

The literature suggests that upper-elementary-school students have a strong inclination to conclude that they are competent in mathematics. How do students of widely varying abilities reach this conclusion? Do task structures, grading practices, and grouping patterns influence the achievement standards that students use in reaching a positive evaluation of their ability? Findings from analyses of 1,570 upper-elementary students who believe that they are good at math include the following. (1) The combination of differentiated task structures and infrequent grades is associated with students' low reliance on adults' assessments and across-domain comparisons as bases for their positive self-concepts, but the combination of differentiated task structures and frequent grades is associated with heavy reliance on these 2 standards. (2) Students' use of social comparison and task mastery is stratified according to students' talent levels when grades are frequent, but when grades are infrequent even untalented students decide on the basis of (selective?) social comparisons and (exaggerated?) estimates of task mastery that they are good at math.