Wolgast Large-scale Assess Educ (2018) 6:12 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-018-0065-y RESEARCH Open Access School students’ beliefs about abilities and perspective‑taking over time Anett Wolgast* *Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract Department of Educational Background: Beliefs about one’s own abilities and perspective-taking are essential for Psychology, Faculty of Education, Martin Luther- appropriate behavior in professional and social life, cooperative learning, and situa- University, Franckepl. 1, tions were confict is occurring. The social comparison theory and previous research 06110 Halle, Germany suggested positive relations between school students’ beliefs about one’s own abilities and perspective-taking. The hypotheses were: (1) Beliefs about one’s own abilities and perspective-taking are positively related to each other after the transition to secondary school and (2) will fade thereafter. Methods: The hypotheses were tested using data from two national longitudinal studies. In Study 1, analyses were based on a sample consisting of the same N 4428 students in ffth, seventh, and ninth grades. Beliefs about one’s own abilities and= per- spective-taking were analyzed by one structural equation model considering relevant covariates, namely gender, school achievement, ethnic background, school type, and socioeconomic status. In Study 2, the sample consisted of N 2105 students who were assessed at the beginning, during, and at the end of ffth grade.= Beliefs about one’s own abilities and perspective-taking were analyzed by the same structural equation model as in Study 1 including the same covariates and additional cognitive abilities. Results: Relations only existed from the frst to the second measurement point in both studies.