SELF-CONCEPT CLARITY AS A PREDICTOR OF ADOLESCENT SELF-REGULATION IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT

In the 21st century people have more freedom and choice than ever before but this also leads to the need to focus on the development of self-regulation skills. Self-regulation is therefore an important goal in designing instructional processes.

A lot has been spoken in educational policy documents and international reports about future trends in learning about 21st century skills and core competencies. However, scientific approach together with suggestions for the implementation of these topics at school has remained on the background (Ahonen, & Kinnunen, 2015). Current research aims to start filling this gap by exploring a potential predictor of self-regulation which is according to Ahonen & Kinnunen (2015) one of the core skills. More specifically, the aim of current study was to better understand the role of one of the internal factors – self-concept clarity – in predicting adolescent self-regulation.

Although late adolescence is the lowest point of self-regulatory abilities (Hagler, Grych, Banyard, & Hamby, 2016), research on the development of self-regulation (Crandall, Magnusson, & Novilla, 2018) and on the factors predicting the critical phenomenon of late adolescent self-regulation is still scarce (Farley, & Kim-Spoon, 2014). This information would be very important to inform schools on how to support the development of self-regulation as one core competence.

This research was based on a recently introduced theory – Identity-Value Model of Self-Regulation by Berkman, Livingston and Kahn (2017) – which enables to infer that people with more stable and unified self-concepts have a more stable foundation to base their decisions on and should therefore have higher self-regulation in general. Thus, according to the underlying logic of the theoretical account, guiding students to achieve higher identity awareness should give them a more stable reference point for regulating themselves. However, to our knowledge, this relation has not been empirically tested.
In order to investigate the predictive role of identity awareness in predicting students’ self-regulation the Estonian Self-Concept Clarity Scale (Matto, & Realo, 2001) and the Adolescent Self-Regulatory Inventory (Moilanen, 2007) were used as part of an online survey. Altogether 648 high school students participated. The survey was completed by students online during lessons or at home. Parents’ written consent was asked. Participation was voluntary and the students had the possibility to opt out from the study at any time.

Results of linear regression showed that 22% of self-regulation variability is explained through self-concept clarity. More specifically, a change of one standard deviation in self-concept clarity (on a 5-point scale) results in .472 standard deviations increase in participants’ self-regulation (on a 5-point scale).

The study provides initial evidence on the importance of internal factors in predicting adolescent self-regulation. The result suggests that paying more attention to students’ understanding of themselves could lead to enhanced self-regulation and thus help develop one of the core skills for becoming a successful citizen.