Academic self-concept (ASC), i.e., self-related thoughts and beliefs about the ability to succeed in academic tasks and achievement situations (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003), is considered a prerequisite of achievement motivation (Shavelson et al., 1976) and is, therefore, of utmost importance for students’ academic functioning. Research has shown that positive ASC is associated with higher educational achievement, more ambitious career aspirations (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003), and contributes to students’ well-being and school satisfaction (Marcionetti & Rossier, 2016).

Theories of ASC have identified some key processes that shape the formation of ACS. The primary source of ASC are reflected experiences from past performance situations (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003; Shavelson et al., 1976) on the basis of which students form beliefs about their competence. Longitudinal studies have demonstrated that early academic achievement explains gains in later ASC and early ASC is associated with later gains in educational achievement, according to a so-called reciprocal effect model (Wu et al., 2021). As academic performance cannot be easily evaluated against an objective accomplishment standard, ASC is heavily influenced by a frame of reference the students use when judging their academic ability. The same achievement may, therefore, lead to different ASC levels, depending on which frame of reference the students choose. Students can use social, dimensional, or temporal frames of reference, but social comparison often serves as prominent source of information about one’s perceived competence in educational settings (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003).

Marsh (1984) called the conceptual model of ASC formation in social comparison with significant others, usually classmates, the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE). This effect describes that students develop poorer ASC when they attend schools or classes with higher ability level as compared to equally able students who are placed in schools or classes with lower average achievement. While there is strong evidence for the universality of BFLPE across education systems and cultural contexts (Guo et al., 2018; Seaton et al., 2009), less is known about potential variables that could moderate the negative effect of average school or class achievement on student ASC.

Because ASC results from evaluative processes occurring in interactions between individual students and their learning environment, two categories of moderators can be distinguished (Schwabe et al., 2019): (1) student individual characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, personality traits or ability level, and (2) classroom-related characteristics, such as socioemotional climate or teachers’ pedagogical approaches. Recent research suggests that both categories may play a role in moderating BFLPE (Stockus & Zell, 2024), but classroom-related factors are of particular practical relevance given their malleability and openess to change. In particular, teacher-student relationships (Schwabe et al., 2019) and individualized instruction (Roy et al., 2015) have been found to moderate BFLPE in European education systems, but moderation effect was not confirmed for teacher grading practices and the use of individualized frame of reference, i.e., evaluating student performance in terms of individual learning progress (Stockus & Zell, 2024). However, this line of research remains limited, restricting the generalizability of the findings.

This submission contributes to research on BFLPE moderators by providing empirical evidence from mainstream lower secondary schools in Czechia. Within Europe, Czech education system is among the most decentralized, with schools enjoying a high degree of autonomy over curriculum organization, instructional methods, assessment practices, and their adaptation to students’ needs. In addition, external student assessment using standardized tests does not take place at primary and lower secondary levels, meaning that students rely on classroom-related feedback regarding their academic performance.

This study uses a nationally representative sample of sixth-grade students in mainstream track lower secondary schools to investigate the role of peer relationships, teacher support and grading practices as BFLPE moderators in the context of an education system where students receive feedback on their performance primarily from social comparison with their classmates and from their teachers. Data collection took place in 2023 as part of SYRI School Panel Study. Students were administered achievement tests in mathematics and Czech language, and background questionnaires that contained questions about their school experience including self-concept in mathematics and Czech language, perceived teacher support, peer relationships, and grades. The analysis excludes students with missing data on all questionnaire items and classes in which the number of students with valid questionnaire data was lower than 10. The final analytical sample comprises around 2,400 students from 133 classes (average class size is 17.5). This contribution focuses on ASC in mathematics. It was measured by four items adapted from shortened version of the Students' Approaches to Learning (SAL) questionnaire (Ropovik & Greger, 2023). Five items taken from PISA school belonging scale were used to measure peer relationships within classrooms. Nine items taken from the study by Fauth et al. (2014) were used to measure teacher support. Student achievement in mathematics was measured by a 30-item test that employed a combination of item types and student scores were estimated by a mixed 2PL/3PL IRT model. Gender and socioeconomic status were used as control variables. Doubly latent two-level structural equation models (Marsh et al., 2009) with ASC as dependent variable are used to estimate BFLPE and effects associated with student- and classroom-related variables. In the first step, individual student achievement and classroom average achievement are entered to replicate BFLPE. Next, contextual variables are introduced at the student level to evaluate their effects on ASC. Finally, interactions between classroom average achievement and contextual variables are tested. All analyses are performed in Mplus version 8.7.

Although the sample excludes selective long academic track schools (8-year academic schools), BFLPE was replicated in the current sample, indicating that even less obvious and more subtle forms of ability grouping within the mainstream school track pose risks to students’ ASC. When individual and classroom achievement were accounted for, ASC was further predicted by positive peer-relationships, teacher support, male gender and better grades. Results of the moderation analysis are not yet available and will be presented at the conference. Preliminary analyses suggest that in addition to their main effect on ASC, grades moderate the strength of the relationship between ASC and classroom average achievement, while a similar moderation effect is not confirmed for teacher support and peer relationships. The findings suggest that in the absence of external standardized testing, school grades are particularly powerful tools in shaping students’ ASC. Apart from practical implications for the schools’ pedagogical practice, this study suggests that characteristics of education systems may help explain inconsistent findings in existing research on BLFPE moderators.

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