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The relationship between personality, approaches to learning, and academic achievement was investigated. Two different undergraduate student samples, totalling 310 students, participated in the study. Results showed the expected significant correlations between the personality factors of openness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, on the one hand, and deep, surface, and strategic approaches to learning, on the other. A significant negative correlation between surface approach and achievement was observed in sample 1. In sample 2, achievement was positively correlated with neuroticism, openness, and deep approach, and negatively correlated with agreeableness. Path analysis showed that each approach to learning was predicted by multiple personality traits, and that academic achievement was predicted by approaches to learning. A separate analysis showed that the relationship between openness and achievement was mediated by a deep approach to learning.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between course experience, students' approaches to learning, effort, ability and examination grade, and to examine aspects of construct validity in the present versions of the Course Experience Questionnaire and the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students in a sample of 206 undergraduate psychology students. The results showed that course experience, students' approaches to learning and ability were significantly correlated with examination grade, whereas effort was not. Structural equation modelling showed that a surface approach mediated the relationship between course experience and academic achievement, whereas ability remained an independent predictor of achievement. These findings indicate that both ability and approaches to learning have considerable independent effects on academic achievement, and that the students' perceptions of the learning environment are important sources of approaches to learning.