The negative contextual-mean effect persists for the top-ranked student in each class, constraining rank-sufficiency accounts¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? When ordinal standing was fixed at the highest position by retaining exactly one top-ranked student per class, the contextual class-average effect remained negative. → Herbert W. Marsh 2026

Evidence¶

Herbert W. Marsh 2026¶

Herbert W. Marsh. (2026). Four Decades After the Big-Fish–Little-Pond Effect: Critical Boundary Tests and Integrative Models of Mean-Context, Ordinal-Standing, and Distributional-Scaling in 46 Countries. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10200-0

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Rank-fixed boundary analysis retaining exactly one top-ranked student per class (N = 11,684, one per class, unweighted): "the contextual effect remained negative (L2 = − 0.356, SE = 0.095)", contradicting the strong ordinal-standing prediction that the effect should approach zero at top rank.

"In the top-student analysis, ordinal standing was fixed at the most favorable possible position, yet the contextual effect remained negative (L2 = − 0.356, SE = 0.095). Thus, even the student with no higher-achieving classmate still reported lower MSC in higher-achieving classrooms."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Academic Self-Concept — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• The contextual-mean effect remains negative across every achievement decile and across MSC quantiles, with no systematic attenuation at the top — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
• Contextual-mean effects show little moderation by individual achievement; apparent positive moderation is illusory when the quadratic term is omitted — related
• Integrative models indicate much of the apparent ordinal-rank effect reflects distributionally scaled relative achievement, while contextual means remain the most robust comparative indicator — related
• Class-average achievement negatively predicts mathematics self-concept after controlling individual achievement (BFLPE replication in TIMSS 2019) — a broader claim this one bears on