Assignment 2
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Tutor’s Name: Dr Caroline Mansfield
Student’s Name: Brent Armstrong
Student Number: 19250014
Date: 4/5/09
Introduction
In this assignment the writer is asked to write a literately review on a topic relevant to the course of study. Due to the large amount of time, energy and importance placed on self-esteem in the educational environment, the writer has decided to review the concept of self-esteem; specifically looking at the current definition(s) and measurement(s) of self-esteem. The energy spent on self-esteem stems from the belief that students with high self-esteem produce greater educational outcomes than those with low self-esteem. This literature review will question this belief and suggest that there is enough information to bring into question this often unreserved opinion.
In order to do this the review will take the following format. The first part of the assignment will look at a variety of definitions used to describe self-esteem and suggests that this is part of the problem in accurately determining the impact that self-esteem has on educational outcomes. It is also argued that the large number of explicit variables makes it difficult to not only define self-esteem but also pin point causality.
The second section will look at the validity of current tools used to measure self-esteem, this issue arrises because most of the measurement tools rely on the participant answering subjective questions. It is argued that this is problematic because when people answer questions about their own self-esteem they may not be totally honest with their responses. It is suggested that a more quantitative measure is required to try to counteract the biased answers. In this section the writer also looks at the cultural impact of measuring self-esteem. The research suggested that because self-esteem is more a Western concept the results can be misleading when used cross culturally.
Finding a definition for Self-esteem....