Contribution of Gender on Academic Self-Concept among Adolescents of Children Villages , Nepal

Academic self-concept is the crucial part of the educational adjustments of adolescents. Thus this paper aims to assess the academic self-concept via gender of adolescents. For this purpose, researcher employed the post positivist philosophy with cross sectional survey design. The data was gathered through self-administered questionnaire from the 74 adolescents. This numbers of adolescent were randomly assigned from 95 adolescents according to the Wolff and Pant’s guidelines. After this, the researcher adopted both descriptive and Chi square test to analyze the results. This study revealed that the adolescents’ exhibit the elevated level of academic self-concept where their peer groups, teachers, school and families also make contribution. Likewise, gender makes significant effects in academic self-concept and exam results among adolescent. Finally, the academic self-concept makes sure about the well educational adjustment among adolescents and further promotes their successful career in near future.


Introduction
The adolescent is the crucial period for every individual in terms of overall growths and changes.Considering it, the adolescents experience the diverse types of changes like physical, mental, social and emotional changes (Horrocks, 1989).These changes lead them towards adulthood via developing mature and proper adjustment in their life.Despite it, these changes also affect in the overall development process of adolescents and create various adjustments problems (Dangol, 2010).Thus, the adolescent is the transitional period (Kapur, 2015) when the individual struggle to adjust in the existing environment.The adjustment refers as the responses (raw survival) towards the environmental demands (Rathus & Nevid, 1983).In Cite this article as: R. Dangol (2019) Int.J. Soc.Sc.Manage. Vol. 6, Issue-2: 35-39. DOI: 10.3126/ijssm.v6i1.22803 R. Dangol (2019) Int. J. Soc. Sc. Manage. Vol. 6, Full text of this paper can be downloaded online at www.ijssm.org/&http://nepjol.info/index.php/IJSSM/issue/archiveFurthermore, it contributes the educational well-being among adolescents.More specifically, the academic selfconcept is the experiences of confidence in terms of exam (Kaur & Kumaran, 2016).These confidences were generated by the self as well as by their peers, teachers, school, and family.
However, the academic self-concept is also influenced by the gender of the student.The gender is the subjective phenomena of the society (Martin, 2004) where the society determines the role of people accordance to their identity as male or female.Thus the gender plays crucial role in the educational process of child (Guledani, 2011).
In developing countries like Nepal, the society and families gave preferences to the son.As a result, the sons get more facilities, motivation and learning environment than girl child in homes (Pokharel, 2013).These discriminatory practices contribute the differences in academic selfconcept among adolescents.
Due to these reasons, the academic self-concept across gender is the burning issues in Nepali societies.It makes the negative impact in overall teaching and learning process.So there is need of detail studies to explore the existing problems within the academic self-concept among adolescents.For this purpose, researcher identified the key questions as: What is the condition of academic selfconcept among adolescents?In which extent gender influences the academic self-concept of adolescents?What is the role of peer groups, teacher, school, and family in academic self-concept among adolescents?Considering these questions, the researcher formulated the research hypothesis as follows for getting the desired answer in this study.

Hypothesis Testing
1.There exists difference in academic self-concept across gender of adolescents.2. Gender significantly influences the status of exam results among adolescents.

Methods
This study intends to explore the academic self-concept and examine it across gender among adolescents.For this purpose, researcher adopted post positivist paradigm and employed cross sectional survey design of Shrestha (2019) with quantitative in nature.The researcher identified the entire adolescent of shelter home as the population and each individual adolescent refers as unit of analysis in this study.Then, researcher derived 74 sample sizes randomly from 95 numbers of adolescents via using Wolff and Pant (2005) guidelines.After this, researcher gathered information about academic self-concept through self-administer questionnaire and analyzed with descriptive as well as nonparametric test like Chi-square test.For performing the Chi-square test researcher employed following formula (Devkota, 1999).
In this equation, the symbol 'O' and 'E' denote observed and expected frequencies respectively.Similarly, the degrees of freedom (df) = (r-1) (c-1), where r and c refer to number of rows and columns respectively in contingency table.

Results
After performing the test, researcher found that the data was not normally distributed, and data collection tool is not constructed in scale form.So, these facts contribute to fulfill the assumptions of non-parametric test.As a result, researcher performed the non-parametric test in this study.

Feeling of Confident towards Exam Results
This part deals the number of students ever felt confident as well as their status of recent exam in Table 1.
The Tables 1 divulge that 86.48 percent (N = 64) youths ever felt confident towards exam results.Among them the majority of adolescent {male (N = 39, % = 86.67)and female (N = 25, % = 86.20)}felt confident to get success while giving their exam.Likewise, the majority of adolescents (N = 69, % = 93.24)get success while they got their exam results.Moreover, the 42 (93.33%) male and 27 (93.1 %) female adolescents were passed their recent exams.This figure portrayed that the number of adolescents got success in exam than the number of ever felt confident towards their exam.
In other hand, researcher performed the Chi-square test to examine the significant differences in academic selfconcept and status of exam across the gender of students (Table 2 and 3).
The Table 2 reveal the calculated Chi square value ( 2 = 0.007) is lesser than the critical value for Chi square (3.84) at 0.05 level of significance with df = 1.Thus the null hypothesis is accepted which means the gender of students makes differences in academic self-concept of students.Likewise, the table 3 portraits the derived Chi square value ( 2 = 0.024).Moreover, this calculated value of Chi square is smaller than the tabulated value at 95 % confidence limit with df (1).As a result, the gender of school students significantly influences the status of exam results considering passed or failed.

Others Role in Academic Self-concept among Adolescents
The researcher incorporated the role play by the adolescents' peer groups, teachers, school, and village family for building their academic self-confident in The academic self-concept of adolescents was influenced by their peer groups, teachers, schools and village family.
In the context of peer groups, the majority adolescents (N = 49, % = 66.21) experienced the encouragement, however, the remaining (33.78 %) adolescents were not able to judge either supporting or discouraging to their academic selfconcept.Among them few more male adolescents (68.89 %) felts the supporting behavior than female adolescents (62.06 %) from their peer groups.
Likewise, almost (97.30%) adolescents found helpful behavior from their teachers to build confidence level considering the study.Among them, slightly few more twothirds (N = 54, % = 72.97) said that they got incredible facilitation from their teachers.More specifically, the male (77.78 %) were few more than female (65.51 %) adolescents who perceived helping behavior from their tutors while building academic self-concept in the schools.
In contrary to it, the negligible number (N = 2, % = 2.70 %) of adolescent faces the avoiding behavior from their teachers.
Similarly, the two-third majority of male (N = 35, % = 46.66)and female (N = 27, % = 65.51)female students were satisfied from the role of school for their building academic self-concept.However, the remaining few (N = 12, % = 16.22)students told that they were unknown about the role of school towards building their self-concept.In overall, 83.77 % students perceived that they were satisfied from the role of school to their academic self-concept.
Furthermore, the three-fourth (89.19 %) village families were also found cooperative to the developing academic self-concept among adolescents.In gender perspectives the village family was more cooperative towards the male (77.78 %) than female (58.62 %) adolescents.However, the few adolescents (N = 8, % = 10.81)reveals that they have no ideas that the village family were loyal towards them.

Discussions
The research portrayed that majority of the adolescents experienced the academic self-concept and also got affirmative results in their exams.This high academic selfconcept and success in results were due to the supportive behavior from their peer groups, teachers, school and their village families.This finding is analogous to the Rady et al. (2016) done in the field of academic self-concept where they claim peer groups, teachers and family contributes adolescent to develop their self-esteem and confidence.
More specifically, McElhaney et al. (2008) explorecents felt more comfortable and they can easily share their problems in peer groups.The peer groups also guide, motivate, build confidence, and make relief from problems among the adolescents.In addition, these supportive cultures from peer groups increase the academic performance (e.g.Howard, 2004) in study and it ultimately derives excellent results in exams.In addition, the researcher revealed that the peer group of adolescents influences the academic self-concept in this study.This result is similar to the Howard (2004) where author claims the peer groups can manipulate every aspect of adolescents.
Likewise, the researcher derived that teacher and schools contribute in academic self-concept among adolescents which is analogous to Ghazvini (2011).For instance, sound school environment, good student-teacher relationship, well school facility, teacher's encouraging behavior work in collaboration to build up the academic self-confidence.Finally, the parental involvement is crucial factors in creating academic self-concept among adolescents (Rohult, Gore & Dukes, 2015).More specifically, parents gave their precise time and facilitate the adolescents in their studies process by creating the sound learning environment in home, providing study facilities like books and materials, and sending their children in the excellent school.As a result, the family also influences the academic self-concept among adolescents.
The supportive environment contributes to develop motivations, eagerness, enthusiasm, and laborious behavior towards learning.Consequently, adolescents were being highly confidence towards their study that reflects the academic self-concept.In addition, the academic selfconcept is associated with the academic achievement (Marsh & Martin, 2011;Jaiswal & Choudhri, 2017).Considering it, the adolescents have the high level of academic self-concept which results the elevated academic achievement.This high level of confidence and achievement make them more confidence towards their results.
Likewise, gender discrimination is deeply rooted in the Nepali society (Pokharel, 2013).It can most probably be seen in the family and even in school.More particularly, the female adolescents experienced the gender discrimination than their male siblings and classmates (Basnet, 2013).These adolescents have low self esteem and feeble motivation towards their study (Huynnh & Fuligni, 2010).The lack of self esteem and motivation decrease their level of confidence and learning readiness.Eventually, it further dwindles the academic self concept among adolescents.Thus, the academic self-concept of adolescents was determined by their gender (Bharathi & Sreedevi, 2015) which is also seen in this study.Considering it, there was slightly more males who exhibit academic self-concept than female adolescents due to facing gender differences in this study.Due to these gender differences, the more females were found to be less confident towards their exam results in comparison to male adolescents.
However, the elevated level of academic self-concept and confidence towards exam make these adolescents more success in their academic life.The ensuring of academic self-concept enhances the educational adjustment process among adolescents.Likewise, it also increases the educational achievement and further leads them to achieve success in many dimensions of their life in near future.

Conclusions
The academic self-concept is the crucial part of the educational adjustment process among adolescents and it is associated with the educational achievements.Considering it, the elevated level of academic self-concept and confidence towards exams contributes the educational success among adolescents.In addition, the gender, peer groups, teachers, school and family also contribute to achieve academic self-concept among adolescents.Thus, the academic self-concept and confidence increase the educational achievement, and it promotes adolescents to becoming success in their professional life.

Table 1 :
Perception of Confident towards Exam Results among Adolescents

Table 2 :
Chi Square Tests about Academic Self-concept across Gender

Table 3 :
Chi Square Tests about Status of Exam Results across Gender

Table 4 :
Others role for Academic Self-concept among Adolescents