Unfortunately, self-concept is also an illusive and often poorly defined construct. Accordingly, definition is the first consideration in the assessment of self-concept. Extensive empirical research in developmental and educational psychology over the past 15 years has strongly supported the multifaceted view. Most of the currently published instruments are of this type. Rating scales typically are composed of a set of statements to which the respondent expresses a degree of agreement or disagreement.
Checklists provide interesting qualitative information, but have two shortcomings.
Second, the categorization of the adjectives is done by an external party, without knowing what exact meaning the adjective has for the individual. Both quantitative and qualitative methods can be used to evaluate the results of the sorting task. Although some sets of these sentence-completion tasks have been published formally, complete with quantitative scoring schemes, responses more frequently are evaluated qualitatively. Although this is a promising idea, it remains undeveloped. First, the person must have a sufficient level of self-awareness.