On September 4, IU alumnus Herbert Marsh (B.A. Psychology ’68) returned to the department to give a talk about his career as a researcher in educational psychology. Originally from Lake County, Indiana, he first came to IU seeking an undergraduate degree in business. But it was in psychology that he blossomed, and from there set out on a remarkable career across three continents as a leading educational psychology researcher.
The Institute for Scientific Information designates Marsh an “ISI highly cited researcher,” who in 2020 and 2021, was “the highest-ranked educational researcher in the world.” Now a professor at the Australian Catholic University in the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education and founding director of the International SELF Research Centre, where he has served for 25 years, he has also taught at Oxford University in England and the University of Western Sydney.
The “Big Fish Little Pond Effect”
Fifty-six years after receiving his undergraduate degree, Marsh received a warm welcome at PBS and in a provocative talk challenged some widespread beliefs about the circumstances in which academic abilities flourish.
Marsh approaches the issue by way of “academic self-concept” and its reciprocal relationship to academic ability. For example, his research has found that those with a strong academic self-concept in verbal skills will be disinclined to embrace a sense that they are strong in math. The same is true for those with a positive self-concept in math.
His “Big Fish Little Pond” theory suggests that academic self-concept depends largely on how we compare ourselves to the average ability of those around us. Academic self-concept, he suggested, improves the more favorably we compare to our classmates, and that positive self-concept in turn improves our academic abilities. As he points out, this view has been somewhat controversial, calling into question widely accepted beliefs about the benefit of attending selective schools, as well as the idea that mainstreaming is beneficial to students with special needs.
Speaking across Generations
Reflecting back on his time at IU, Marsh recalls a part-time job he held in the department, for which he stayed overnight in the Psychology Building two nights a week to monitor a 24-hour-a-day animal experiment. “I got to know lots of the academics on a first-name basis,” he said. “Lots of interesting people would wander in and out with whom I had a chance to work with and communicate.” He recalls the many faculty instrumental to his development, among them Roger Russell, George Heise, Frank Restle, James Greeno and Jerome Chertkoff.
To the budding academics in the audience, Marsh offered some advice: “It’s important to find your niche area. When people think of this area, they think of you,” he said. Academic self-concept was his niche. “The benefits of feeling positive about yourself apply to anything and are likewise important in education.”
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