Contributions of Personality and Interests to Explaining the Educational Aspirations of College Students

Abstract

This study extends prior work by examining how a different model of personality beyond the Big Five and interest are predictive of an important criterion variable, educational aspirations. This is the first study to investigate personality-interest convergence by examining the newly revised 2003 California Psychological Inventory with the 1994 Strong Interest Inventory. In general, the authors found that those personality scales and interest scales that were more related or applicable to educational aspirations were moderately correlated with level of educational aspirations. Also, hierarchical regression results showed that specific dimensions of personality and interests are related to college students’ plans for future scholarly work. Similarly, the current study found that components of one’s personality and interest may relate to aspiring to higher levels of education.

RIASEC interests and the Big Five personality traits matter for life success—But do they already matter for educational track choices?

“…By contrast, people with Investigative, Artistic, and Enterprising interests end up in higher educational levels and in higher level occupations. Indeed, initial evidence indicate (Gasser, Larson, & Borgen, 2004;Rottinghaus et al, 2002;Su, 2012) that interests predict the educational levels that individuals aspire to and attain. However, there is little research on the associations between interests and track choices.…”

“…Whereas the Big Five traits are well-known predictors of indicators of life success and educational outcomes (e.g., income, social status, or educational attainment), previous research on vocational interests has rarely taken levels of education or work into account. The few existing studies (a) used restricted specific samples (e.g., psychology students; Gelissen & De Graaf, 2006), (b) did not control for the impact of important covariates (e.g., family background indicators; Dumfart et al, 2016), or (c) utilized qualifications as outcome (e.g., Gasser et al, 2004). The German educational system provides an excellent opportunity to investigate choices of hierarchically ranked educational tracks.…”

Student evaluation of teaching: Individual differences and bias effects

“…The proposed links across individual difference domains have also been investigated empirically (Gasser, Larson, & Borgen, 2004;Larson, Rottinghaus, & Borgen, 2002;Staggs, Larson, & Borgen, 2003. For example, Larson and colleagues (2002) conducted a meta-analysis of 24 studies in which correlations between the six RIASEC interest types and the Big Five personality traits were reported.…”

“…Another possibility is that the differences in SET ratings across academic disciplines result from the types of students that compose the roster of the courses in various disciplines. Students with a particular combination of interests and personality traits tend to be attracted to some majors but not others as the prior literature indicates (Gasser et al, 2004;Larson, Wei, Wu, Borgen, & Bailey, 2007;. Therefore, if the traits in question are differentially linked to SET ratings, SET scores across disciplines are expected to vary based on what types of students are over-or under-represented in these courses.…”

Personality, interests, and self-efficacy: The incremental validity of basic level constructs in discriminating among college majors and occupational aspirations

“…The use of interest measures to predict career choices has a long tradition in vocational psychology . Interests, defined as preference for activities and work environments (Rounds, 2005), are effective for predicting a variety of choice behaviors ranging from future occupational aspirations (Campbell, 1971;Hansen & Dik, 2005) to educational aspirations (Gasser, Larson, & Borgen, 2004). Interests have also been shown to predict the current major or current occupation of an individual (Donnay & Borgen, 1996;Gasser, Larson, & Borgen, 2007).…”