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Article Excerpt
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the contributions of motivation, personality, learning strategies, and scholastic aptitude to academic achievement in college students. One hundred and eighty six undergraduate students completed measures that assessed academic achievement through grade point average (GPA). When partialled out with SAT score, only personality variables, explicitly Type T Personality and openness to experience remained significant predictors of academic achievement.
Introduction
One major goal of educational psychological research is to increase our understanding of the role of individual differences, motivation, and learning in academic achievement (Pintrich, 2003). Students with insight about their individual cognitive style and motivation levels tend to seek educational environments that will enhance their learning. Increasing the educators' awareness of students' individual differences could yield several benefits (Cervone & Mischel, 2002). First, educators could use this information to adjust the learning environment to meet students' individual needs including addressing any motivational problems that may be antecedents of college attrition rates (Hancock, Bray, & Nason, 2002). Moreover, educators could learn better about students' levels of cognitive engagement to facilitate their persevering through difficult work (Meyer & Turner, 2002). In addition, educators could improve the quality of college academic instruction, such as the implementation of a cooperative instructional environment. Finally, any insight about how students vary on given dimensions could hopefully facilitate self-regulation processes (Mischel & Shoda, 2000). Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the role of personality, motivation, the use of learning strategies, and scholastic aptitude in the academic achievement of college students.
Literature Review
Personality Factors
Two trait theories of personality were considered in this study, the Five Factor Model (FFM) (McCrae & Costa, 1999) and Type T Personality (Farley, 1991). The five tenets of FFM represent basic tendencies, characteristic adaptations, self-concept, objective biography, and external influences. The system's five personality factors are: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experiences, agreeableness, and conscientiousness and are postulated to develop during childhood, remain stable through adulthood, and influence patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
The second perspective on personality is what Farley (1991) calls the Type T Personality, where thrill seeking (T) is a personality trait in people who are risk-takers, and are motivated by variety, novelty, intensity, and uncertainty. In addition, they are attracted to situations with high levels of stimulation, energy, and creativity and prefer internal/mental stimulation (T mental), external/physical stimulation (T physical), or both, with positive (T+) and negative (T-) expressions of the personality. T Types are postulated to thrive in an academic environment...
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