Research Paper Self Concept
There is a general consensus that hearing impaired children tend to have lower self-concept cause of a tendency to academic failure, difficulty in information processing and the segregation from mainstream schooling that they experience. This study was designed to find out the academic and intellectual self concept of hearing impaired children. Altogether 1 00 school going children in the age group of 1 2 to 17 years were purposively selected from special school for hearing impaired children. Out of which 50 were boys and 50 girls in each category. Self prepared questionnaire was administered on each subject.
On the whole the academic self concept was found meaningfully and positively related with intellectual self concept of hearing impaired children. But no difference was found in academic and intellectual self concept of girls and boys. Key Words: Self Concept, Academic self concept, Intellectual Self concept. 1. 0. Introduction Self-concept is an important construct in psychology and education. It can be defined as the object of an individual’s own perception or in other words it is the way people think about themselves. It is that part of personality of which one is aware.
William James (1890) in his first introductory textbook in Psychology described the self as the way in which the self could be expanded o include one’s cloths, one’s home and one’s society. Self encompasses both the “l” and “Me” that is both the subject and the object of the experience, both the knower and the known. It is unique, dynamic, and always evolving with individual’s interaction with the social and physical world. As a person faces different situations and new challenges in his life, his insight towards himself may constantly change depending on the way he responds to such life changes.
What an individual think about himself or herself influences his/her identity, self-esteem, body image, and role in society. It shapes and defines ho we are, the decisions we make, and the relationships we form. Various theorists have described the means by which the process takes place in different ways. Freud sees ego and superego developing as psychic structure steering the primitive impulses arising from the old out of the danger of the real world. According to Erosion’s theory, the way a person resolves the crisis will determine their personal identity and future development.
These involve establishing a sense of trust in others, developing a sense of identity in society, and helping the next generation prepare for the future. Social learning theorists describe the process of determination of self concept in terms of observational learning identification and modeling process. Up until 1976, self-concept was viewed as a nun-dimensional structure and its measurement of global and general self-concept provided ‘inconsistent, confounded and ambiguous results’ (Byrne and Gavin, 1996).
Shovels, Huber and Stanton (1976) proposed a halt on self-concept scale development until the structure of self-concept could be elucidated. They suggested that general self-concept was composed of four 1 SST order facets: academic self-concept, social self-concept, emotional self-concept and physical self-concept, The 1 SST order facets are composed of 2nd order facets. Academic self-concept has aspects relating to each of the academic areas of English, History, Math and Science. Social self-concept is composed of peer self-concept and significant others self-concept.
Emotional self-concept is composed of self-concept for particular emotional states. Physical self- concept is composed of physical ability self-concept and physical appearance self-concept. Evaluation of Behaviors in Specific Situation Model of Self-concept proposed by Shovels, Huber, and Stanton (1976). The model differentiates self concept into two separate components- academic and non-academic self concept. Academic self concept is an individual’s beliefs and self- evaluation regarding the nature of their academic-related skills and abilities.
This includes the student’s personal view on how their skills and abilities to operate or work (Deck, 2002; Kaplan & Mingled, 1997; Perkins et al. , 2000). Academic self-concept reflects descriptive (e. G. , like math) as well as evaluative (e. G. I am good at math) aspects of self- reception (Strain, 1993). It is referred to as a person’s perception of self with respect to achievement in school (Rexes, 1984). The review of literature done by Marsh (1993) shows that academic self-concept has an impact on academic achievement of a student.
The non-academic component of self concept has no relation with the academic achievement of a student. There is a general consensus that children with special educational needs tend to have lower self-concept than those without difficulties (Gurney, 1988; Album & Vaughn, 2001 They are vulnerable to low self-concepts because of a indecency to academic failure, inability to process information, communicate effectively their thoughts, the systematizing nature of their learning problems and the segregation from mainstream schooling that many disabled students experience.
The immediate behavior and future development of an individual is greatly influenced by his/her self concept. In a society where normal people is the majority and impose a dominant role, handicapped children, regardless of the nature of the handicap, are often in a position of alienation or isolation, helpless or difficult to behave in response to the others’ expectations. Adjustment to disability is a complex phenomenon and is affected by the attitude of society, parents and professionals towards person with disability.
If the society labels them as handicapped and considers them as incapable of doing certain things, the person develops a negative identity and feeling of inadequacy or impotence seems inevitable. Over the time the person with disability accepts these negative labels as self identity. In this manner, a person With disability, impoverished with constant frustration and failures, are often considered to be difficult to maintain high self-concept. Hearing impairment is a generic term used to indicate a hearing disability which may range in severity from mild to profound (Frisian 1975).
In Musketry’s (1960) book The Psychology of Deafness, deafness is described as “a sensory deprivation that limits the world of experience and deprives the organism of some of the material resources from which the mind develops. Char Son (1989) explained that the consent ounces of deafness go far beyond the physiological condition of auditory loss. An hearing impaired person feels difficulty in learning naturally about what is expected of people and why and owe to obtain satisfaction of their needs in approved ways. Educational process helps a hearing impaired child to develop academically and socially.
Different educational settings with their particular context of instructional environmental and social factors will probably have some varied influence on the well being of student’s overall development. 1. 1 . Intellectual and Academic aspect of hearing impaired children A hearing impaired person is not just deprived of hearing loss but it also affects their development of cognitive skills and acquisition of communication skills. If the hearing impairment is further accompanied with other disabilities, the students face additional learning difficulties.
The prevalence of several specific disabilities occurring with diminished hearing has been documented over time (Craig & Craig, 1993, 1983, 1973). The three additional disabilities most often reported in children with hearing impairment are learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and emotional/behavioral disabilities. Fifth hearing impairment is accompanied with behavioral disabilities, the students may show inappropriate, disruptive, aggressive behaviors that further interfere with earning.
Students with hearing loss and intellectual disabilities may leads to delay in development across all areas of learning with limited problem-solving abilities and lowered adaptive or functional skills. Students diagnosed with learning disabilities and hearing loss are generally found to be in the average or above average range of intelligence displaying skills and abilities in many different ways while displaying specific learning deficits that restrict accomplishments. They are described as exhibiting unusual learning characteristics considered atypical of students who are hearing impaired and hose greatly affect their progress.
But unless a hearing impaired child has other disabilities such as brain damage, there is no causal relationship between deafness and intelligence. According to Daddy (2008), language is not a necessary ingredient for complex cognitive processes. So a child’s cognitive development is not limited just because of hearing impairment. They have proper visual-motor-perceptual functioning through which they acquire cognitive skills. The person’s intellectual capacity is not affected by deafness and they have a normal range of intelligence when tested on reference rather than on verbal tests (Chimed and Peterson, 2001; Mores, 1996).
In spite of having a normal range of intellectual capability it has been found in many studies that most children with hearing impairment experience low academic achievement, (Marchers, 1993, Demands, 1995). Chimed and Petersen (2001). The ability to read is the main area to be affected because the ability to read lies heavily on the main language. The child may achieve low in academics if early stimulation and training in communication is not provided (Mores, 1996).
The child acquires cognitive kills through interacting with the environment and processing the information gathered through various sources. By implication, the child’s inability to hear may also impede the learning of various concepts such as sounds of animals. Deafness is often mistakenly associated with helplessness and the need for protection, hence the greatest obstacle facing the hearing disabled child or adolescent is not the hearing disability, but the failure of parents, professionals and the general public to understand and accept the person with this disability (Daddy, 2008).
Andrews and Lappet, (2000) found hat students may be more fatigued than classmates due to listening effort needed, may have immature behavior, barriers build with negative impact on self esteem as the child is accused of hearing when he or she wants to, “day dreaming’, or “not paying attention”. Child loses ability for selective hearing and has increased difficulty suppressing background noise which makes the learning environment stressful. With full time use of hearing aids/ FM System the child may be judged as a less competent learner, resulting in poorer self concept, social immaturity and sense of rejection.
The child may appear inattentive and frustrated. It appears deafness is a fundamental educational handicap because it interferes with normal linguistic and intellectual development. For those hearing impaired students who display characteristics more commonly associated with processing or understanding of sound, learning disabled students have benefited from many of the oral remediation techniques used to improve listening skills (Roth, 1991). Behavior techniques that include clearly defined choices and expectations with natural consequences have proven effective.
Addressing emotional factors through the educational program and individual or group counseling when appropriate have also proven beneficial (Gage, et al, 1 994; Raising & Ducker, 1993). Psychologists have recognized the important role of self-concept in an individual’s personal adjustment while educators are becoming increasingly aware that a students’ perception of him/ her may have a significant influence on his/her academic performance in school. Studies done over the years have substantiated the positive relationship between these two variables and the volume of growing evidence that the two influence each other cannot be overlooked.
This study may have significance for educators in that it could roved useful information pertaining to the relationship between intellectual self-concept and academic self concept among adolescents with hearing disabilities. 2. 0. Objectives: 1 . To understand the concept of Academic and intellectual self-concept among disabled Adolescence. 2. To find out the relationship between academic and intellectual self-concept among disabled adolescence. 3. TO find out the relationship of self concept of disabled adolescence with reference to gender and age. 2. 1.
Hypothesis: 1 . There is no relationship between the academic and intellectual self concept among hearing disabled adolescence. . There is no significant difference between the academic and intellectual self concept among disabled adolescence with reference to their gender. 3. There is no significant difference between the academic and intellectual self concept among disabled adolescence with reference to their age. 2. 2. Methodology participants The survey was conducted among 1 00 disabled children out of which 50 boys and 50 girls were taken into the sample.
From 50 boys and girls, 25 were Of 12-16 years of age and 25 were of 17-20 years of age. Tool: To test the self-concept Self constructed tool was taken. The tool consisted of 4 questions in academic self-concept and 26 questions in intellectual self- concept. Each item has 4 times response: never to always. Items of questionnaire demands information for each in either of the 4 option: never, sometimes, often and always. The items are started that if the answer is in negative say never, a score of O is given; for some time 1 is given; for often 2 is given and for always 3 is given.
Data collection: Since the children were hearing impaired, so every question was explained to children in sign language with the help of concerned teacher. Then the children were asked to respond and tick as per the choice. The procedure was repeated for 100 children. Data Analysis: The data was obtained from a conveniently selected normative population. The scores obtained through the administration of the questionnaire were subjected to statistical analysis. Statistical Analysis: The statistical methods used for the analysis are mean, standard deviation, Coefficient of correlation and T-test with the help of SPAS version 20. . 0. Result and Discussion Table . 1 : Correlation between Academic self-concept and Intellectual self concept of Hearing Impaired adolescents. The table 1. 1 shows that the correlation between academic self concept and intellectual self concept is highly significant at 0. 05 level of significance. So HO 1 is rejected, which states that there is no relationship between the academic and intellectual self concept among hearing impaired students. This result is supported by the findings of Mishear, 1 997 who found that intelligence was significantly correlated with academic achievement for both boys and girls.
The specific factors believed to be related to academic achievement in deaf children such as parental mode of communication, the mode of communication used in schools, intellectual ability and the degree of hearing zoos (Cunningham, 1999). Table 1. 2: Academic and Intellectual Self Concept of hearing impaired children with respect to gender * Not significant The table 1. 2 shows that there is no significant difference between academic and intellectual self concept in boys and girls at 5%. They are equal to each other in their academic and intellectual self concept.
The effect of loss of hearing equally affects their academic and intellectual self concept irrelevant to their gender. On the basis of this HO 2 is accepted. Adamson (1997) found that student gender did not have a significant effect on either interactions or attitude in multimedia instruction. Table . 3: Academic and Intellectual Self Concept of hearing impaired children with respect to age The table 1. 3 shows that there is no significant difference between academic and intellectual self concept with respect to age at 5%.
The academic and intellectual self concept of 12-16 years old hearing impaired children is similar to the academic and intellectual self concept of 17-20 years age group. It may be because deaf individuals who have primarily deaf friends and are highly involved in a Deaf community (Special school for Hearing impaired) usually have higher self-esteem. They withdraw themselves almost fully from the society dominated with hearing people, they also have less chance of improvement or achievement in their life (Jamboree & Elliot, 2005). 4. 0.
Conclusion The main purpose of conducting the present study on Academic and Intellectual self-concept among hearing impaired adolescents was to find the relationship between academic and intellectual self-concept among hearing impaired adolescents. The findings of the study shows that there is a strong relationship between academic and intellectual self-concept Of hearing impaired students. That means the students self perception about their ability to reason, understand logic, ask questions, discuss topics, communicate thoughts, provide effective input is positively correlated to their perception of academic skills and capabilities.
