Fang Junyan, Huang Xitong, Zhang Minqiang, Huang Feifei, Li Zhe, Yuan Qiting
Scool of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Psychol. 2018 Aug 29;9:1569. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01569. eCollection 2018.
The Big-fish-little-Pond effect is well acknowledged as the negative effect of class/school average achievement on student academic self-concept, which profoundly impacts student academic performance and mental development. Although a few studies have been done with regard to this effect, inconsistence exists in the effect size with little success in finding moderators. Here, we present a meta-analysis to synthesize related literatures to reach a summary conclusion on the BFLPE. Furthermore, student age, comparison target, academic self-concept domain, student location, sample size, and publication year were examined as potential moderators. Thirty-three studies with fifty-six effect sizes (total = 1,276,838) were finally included. The random effects model led to a mean of the BFLPE at β = -0.28 ( < 0.001). Moreover, moderator analyses revealed that the Big-Fish-Little-Pond effect is an age-based process and an intercultural phenomenon, which is stronger among high school students, in Asia and when verbal self-concept is considered. This meta-analysis is the first quantitative systematic overview of BFLPE, whose results are valuable to the understanding of BFLPE and reveal the necessity for educators from all countries to learn about operative means to help students avoid the potential negative effect. Future research expectations are offered subsequently.
大鱼小池塘效应被公认为班级/学校平均成绩对学生学业自我概念的负面影响，这对学生的学业成绩和心理发展有着深远影响。尽管已经有一些关于这种效应的研究，但效应大小存在不一致性，而且在寻找调节因素方面成效甚微。在此，我们进行一项元分析，综合相关文献以得出关于大鱼小池塘效应的总结性结论。此外，我们还将学生年龄、比较对象、学业自我概念领域、学生所在地、样本量和发表年份作为潜在的调节因素进行了考察。最终纳入了33项研究，共56个效应大小（总计 = 1,276,838）。随机效应模型得出大鱼小池塘效应的均值为β = -0.28（< 0.001）。此外，调节因素分析表明，大鱼小池塘效应是一个基于年龄的过程和一种跨文化现象，在高中生中、在亚洲以及在考虑言语自我概念时更为强烈。这项元分析是对大鱼小池塘效应的首次定量系统综述，其结果对于理解大鱼小池塘效应具有重要价值，并揭示了各国教育工作者了解帮助学生避免潜在负面影响的操作方法的必要性。随后提出了对未来研究的期望。
