Modelling students’ academic confidence, personality and academic emotions

Abstract

The research presented here is founded on the Big Five trait approach to personality which has been shown to be related to academic success, students' academic confidence or self-efficacy and the emotions related to academic achievement.To explore whether Personality characteristics would be differentially associated with Academic Confidence and both would jointly predict Academic Emotions.A bespoke online platform was used to survey undergraduate students in two Spanish universities. The data was used to assess bivariate correlation and to build Structural Equation Models.A total of 1398 undergraduate students studying Psychology, Primary Education, or Educational Psychology degree programmes completed the validated Spanish version of the Academic Behavioural Confidence scale. Of those, 636 also completed a validated Spanish language scale to assess Personality along the Big Five dimensions and 551 of the 1398 students complete a validated Spanish language scale to assess Academic Emotions. A total of 527 students completed all three scales.The correlations showed that the student Personality traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Agreeableness were significantly and positively related to their Academic Confidence whilst Neuroticism was negatively correlated with the degree of Academic Confidence. Similarly student Academic Confidence correlated positively with positive Academic Emotions and negatively with negative Academic Emotions. Structural Equation Modelling resulted in a model of excellent fit that linked the personality traits of Conscientiousness and Neuroticism with overall Academic Confidence and Academic Emotion scores. The methodological issues around the findings along with the implications for undergraduate learning and teaching are discussed.

Do Learning Approaches Set the Stage for Emotional Well-Being in College Students?

“…While Conscientiousness positively predicted the Deep Approach and negatively predicted the Surface Approach and its components, Neuroticism positively predicted the SA approach and its components. These results are similar to those reported in previous research, where these two factors appear as protective vs. risk factors with respect to achievement [14,49,51,52,59,81,82]. These results remain unchanged in the three situations analyzed (class, study, testing); This would suggest a constant effect of personality factors on motivation, with either positive or negative directionality [83].…”

“…Recent research has reported a consistent relationship between the Big Five model and achievement emotions. The conscientiousness factor predicts positive achievement emotions, while neuroticism predicts negative emotions [58,59].…”

Rethinking Associations between Distal Factors and Learning: Attachment, Approaches to Learning and the Mediating Role of Academic Emotions

“…Overall, study's results are in line with contemporary research that underline the important role of more individual characteristics in students' learning (Karagiannopoulou et al, 2020;King & Gaerlan, 2014;Sander & de la Fuente, 2020). Adult attachment styles may function as internal motivators that influence goals and targets in one's life, going beyond important relationships (Blalock et al, 2015).…”

“…Recent literature suggests that distal individual characteristics may influence students' academic emotions (King & Gaerlan, 2014;Sander & de la Fuente, 2020).…”

Self-Regulation and Regulatory Teaching as Determinants of Academic Behavioral Confidence and Procrastination in Undergraduate Students

“…Academic confidence has also appeared as a predictor of coping strategies and achievement ( Kirikkanat and Kali-Soyer, 2018 ), as well as predicting confidence in learning ( Shoemaker, 2010 ). More recently, it has been found in association with and a positive predictor of positive achievement emotions, as well as negatively predicting negative emotions ( Sander and de la Fuente, 2020 ).…”