Big-fish-little-pond social comparison and local dominance effects: Integrating new statistical models, methodology, design, theory and substantive implications

• Class-average achievement has a negative effect on academic self-concept (the big-fish-little-pond effect, BFLPE).
• Brightest and weakest students all suffer the BFLPE.
• Controlling for measures of social comparison substantially reduce the BFLPE.
• School-average achievement has no effect after controlling class-average achievement (local dominance effect).
• Academic self-concept is more related to class marks than standardized test scores.

We offer new theoretical, substantive, statistical, design, and methodological insights into the seemingly paradoxical negative effects of school- and class-average achievement (ACH) on academic self-concept (ASC)—the big-fish-little-pond-effect (BFLPE; 15,356 Dutch 9th grade students from 651 classes in 95 schools). In support of the theoretical, social-comparison basis of the BFLPE, controlling for direct measures of social comparison (subjective ranking of how students compare with other students in their own class) substantially reduces the BFLPE. Based on new (latent three-level) statistical models and theoretical predictions integrating BFLPEs and ‘local dominance’ effects, significantly negative BFLPEs at the school level are largely eliminated, absorbed into even larger BFLPEs at the class level. Students accurately perceive large ACH differences between different classes within their school and across different schools. However, consistent with local dominance, ASCs are largely determined by comparisons with students in their own class, not objective or subjective comparisons with other classes or schools. At the individual student level, ASC is more highly related to class marks (from report cards) than standardized test scores, but the negative BFLPE is largely a function of class-average test scores. Consistent with theoretical predictions, BFLPEs generalize across objective and subjective measures of individual ACH, and BFLPEs are similar for the brightest and weakest students.