Self-Concept in Gifted Youth: An Investigation Employing the Piers-Harris Subscales

The Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale was used to investigate the self-concept of 368 intellectually gifted children in grades 4-12. Previous research had suggested that differences by gender and grade level might be masked by reporting only global self-concept scores, however, few studies reported subscale scores. In this Population gender was not a Significant variable for global self-concept. Significant gender differences were observed on three subscales. Behavior, Intellectual and School Status, and Anxiety. Females rated themselves higher on the first two and males on the latter. School level was a significant variable for glob self-concept; Students in junior high school reported lower self-concept than did students in either elementary school or high school. Similar results were observed with the Behavior subscale. The present study supports the view that a global score for self-concept can mask underlying differences when subscale scores are summed.