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Personality as revealed by mental test scores and by school grades.
Journal of Applied Psychology
Abstract
96 university men and women were given a personality test (self ranking and ranking by house mates) and a mental test (Michigan Modification of Army Alpha). Related traits were brought together in separate tables and correlation coefficients obtained for all the data used. The results obtained, which the authors say agree with those of every other investigator of the subject, indicate that "when personality ratings are used as a standard of comparison" school grades are a better measure than mental tests of foresight, dependability, determination, mentality; that school grades measure both mentality and character—"mental tests measure only a quickness of intelligence and do a second rate job… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... With few exceptions, the measures of academic performance were GPA, ranging from one semester to an entire study program Several studies reported correlations with personality items that were found to reflect the FFM dimensions in independent factor analyses. For the following studies, academic performance-item correlations were combined into weighted averages, with the factorloadings used as the weighting variable: Correlations with the California Children's Q-Sort (CCQ: Block & Block, 1980) reported by Alvidrez and Weinstein (1999) were averaged based on an independently-conducted exploratory factor analysis (John, Caspi, Robins, Moffitt, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1994); correlations with academic performance reported by Webb (Adams, Furniss, & DeBow, 1928;Webb, 1915) were averaged using a later exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of his personality measures (Deary, 1996); correlations with items reported by Smith (1969) were averaged using the factor analysis reported by Smith (1967); correlations reported by Tupes (1957) were averaged using the loadings reported by Tupes and Christal (1958). ...
Considerable gaps remain in teachers' and students' understanding of factors contributing to learning and educational outcomes, including personality. Consequently, current knowledge about personality within educational settings was reviewed, especially its relationships with learning activities and academic performance. Personality dimensions have previously been shown to be related to learning strategies and activities, and to be reliably correlated with academic performance. However, personality is typically self-rated, introducing methodological disadvantages associated with informational and social desirability biases. A meta-analysis of other-rated personality demonstrated substantially higher correlations of academic performance with all of the dimensions of the Five-Factor Model of personality, which were not accounted for by associations with intelligence. The combined association of academic performance with all of the Five-Factor Model dimensions was one of the largest so far reported in education. The findings have implications for personality measurement. Teachers are able to assess students' personalities to match educational activities to student dispositions, while students' development of learning capacities can be facilitated by feedback on how their personalities are linked with effective learning.
Personality is reliably associated with academic performance, but personality measurement in primary education can be problematic. Young children find it difficult to accurately self-rate personality, and dominant models of adult personality may be inappropriate for children.
This meta-analysis was conducted to determine the validity of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality for statistically predicting children's academic performance.
Literature search identified 12 reports, with cumulative sample sizes ranging from 4,382 (19 correlations) to 5,706 (23 correlations) for correlations with Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness respectively.
Hunter-Schmidt random-effects meta-analysis was used, and moderators were tested using sample-weighted regression.
When compared with self-rated measures, adult-rated Conscientiousness and Openness were more strongly correlated with academic performance, but adult-rated Agreeableness was less strongly correlated. Q-set-based assessments had lower validity, which appeared to explain moderating effects of rating source. Moderating effects were not found for age, year of education (grades 1-7), or language within which the study was conducted.
Conscientiousness and Openness had two of the strongest correlations with academic performance yet reported, comparable with previous meta-analytic correlations of academic performance with instructional quality, cognitive ability, and feedback. The FFM appears to be valid for educational research with children. Openness, which has no counterpart in models of children's temperament, should be further researched with children. Future research should examine the measurement of childhood personality, its relationship with intelligence, the extent to which it is malleable in primary education, and its causal relationship with academic performance.
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