The Role of Personality in Predicting (Change in) Students’ Academic Success Across Four Years of Secondary School
Abstract
Abstract. Little longitudinal research has addressed the question of whether the Big Five personality traits (i.e., O, C, E, A, N) predict educational outcomes and whether the Big Five provide incremental predictive validity for educational outcomes when prior achievement, intelligence, and academic self-concept are controlled for. Also, little is known about whether noncognitive factors are related to change in academic success, especially grades, after controlling for its stability. To address these research questions, we used data from the Luxembourg longitudinal extension of the 2009 cycle of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). We included data from two student cohorts that were followed across 4 years: The first cohort was in ninth grade when they participated in PISA (N = 240); the second cohort in 10th grade (N = 276). Correlational results showed that Conscientiousness and Openness were substantially related to subject-specific grades in Mathematics, French, and German across several school years. There was evidence for incremental predictive validity beyond intelligence and academic self-concepts. When controlling for the stability of grades, there were only small effects of all predictors on later grades. In summary, students’ personality (but also intelligence and academic self-concepts) predicted the stable part of grades rather than change.
References
2009). Large-scale student assessment studies measure the results of processes of knowledge acquisition: Evidence in support of the distinction between intelligence and student achievement. Educational Research Review, 4, 165–176.
(2006). Personality and school performance: Incremental validity of self- and peer-ratings over intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 131–142.
(2003). Personality predicts academic performance: Evidence from two longitudinal studies on British University students. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 319–338.
(2010). More than just IQ: A longitudinal examination of self-perceived abilities as predictors of academic performance in a large sample of UK twins. Intelligence, 38, 385–392. doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2010.05.002
(2012). An evaluation of the consequences of using short measures of the Big Five personality traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 874–888.
(2010). Applied missing data analysis. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
(2003). A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504–528.
(2002). Where and why g matters: Not a mystery. Human Performance, 15, 25–46.
(2012). The prediction of school achievement from a behavior genetic perspective: Results from the German twin study on Cognitive Ability, Self-Reported Motivation, and School Achievement (CoSMoS). Personality and Individual Differences, 53, 381–386. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2012.01.020
(2003). Academic self-concept and academic achievement: Developmental perspectives on their causal ordering. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 124–136. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.95.1.124
(1996).
(Individual differences in cognitive functions . In D. C. BerlinerR. C. CalfeeEds., Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 186–242). New York, NY: Prentice Hall International.2007). Academic self-beliefs and prior knowledge as predictors of student achievement in mathematics: A structural model. Educational Psychology, 28, 59–71.
(2008). Parental styles, conscientiousness, and academic performance in high school: A three-wave longitudinal study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(4), 451–461.
(2000). Kognitiver Fähigkeitstest für 4. bis 12. Klassen, Revision. Manual
([Cognitive Abilities Test for Grades 4–12, Revision, Manual] . Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.1997). Berliner Intelligenzstruktur-Test, Form 4
([Berlin Intelligence Structure Test, Form 4] . Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.2004). Academic performance, career potential, creativity, and job performance: Can one construct predict them all?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 148–161.
(2007). Personality and intelligence as predictors of academic achievement: A cross-sectional study from elementary to secondary school. Personality & Individual Differences, 42, 441–451. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2006.08.001
(2004). Eine Validierungsstudie zum NEO-FFI in einer Stichprobe junger Erwachsener. Effekte des Itemformats, faktorielle Validität und Zusammenhänge mit Schulleistungsindikatoren.
([A validation study of the NEO-FFI in a sample of young adults. Effects of item format, factorial validity and correlations with school achievement] . Diagnostica, 50, 134–144.1990). The structure of academic self-concept: The Marsh/Shavelson model. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 623–636.
(2005). Academic self-concept, interest, grades and standardized test scores: Reciprocal effects models of causal ordering. Child Development, 76, 397–416.
(1998–2012). Mplus User’s Guide (7th Ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation, Development (OECD). (Ed.). (2001). Knowledge and skills for life: First results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000. Paris, France: Author.
2001). Big Five predictors of academic achievement. Journal of Research in Personality, 35, 78–90.
(2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 322.
(2014). A meta-analysis of adult-rated child personality and academic performance in primary education. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(2), 239–252.
(2007). Measuring personality in one minute or less: A 10-item short version of the Big Five Inventory in English and German. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 203–212.
(2007). The power of personality: The comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 313–345. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00047.x
(1995). Complex sample data in structural equation modeling. Sociological Methodology, 25, 267–316.
(2008). The developmental psychometrics of big five self-reports: Acquiescence, factor structure, coherence, and differentiation from ages 10 to 20. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 718.
(2013). Personality is related to educational outcomes in late adolescence: Evidence from two large-scale achievement studies. Journal of Research in Personality, 47, 613–625.
(2006). Predicting school achievement from general cognitive ability, self-perceived ability, and intrinsic value. Intelligence, 34, 363–374.
(2011). Goal orientations predict academic performance beyond intelligence and personality. Learning and Individual Differences, 21, 196–200.
(2009). The importance of motivation as a predictor of school Achievement. Learning and Individual Differences, 19, 80–90. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2008.05.004
(2009). Different forces, same consequences: Conscientiousness and competence beliefs are independent predictors of academic effort and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 1115–1128.
(2010). The Psychology of Academic Achievement. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 653–678.
(