Unraveling the impact of the Big Five personality traits on academic performance: The moderating and mediating effects of self-efficacy and academic motivation

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to unravel the impact of the Big Five personality factors on academic performance. We propose a theoretical model with conditional indirect effects of the Big Five personality factors on academic performance through their impact upon academic motivation. To clarify the mixed results of previous studies concerning the impact of neuroticism, we suggest a moderating role of self-efficacy. Hierarchical, moderated mediation and mediated moderation regression analyses were performed on longitudinal data collected from 375 students of a University college in Belgium. The findings revealed a positive indirect effect of neuroticism on academic performance at higher levels of self-efficacy, complemented by a positive direct effect of neuroticism at lower levels of self-efficacy. Finally, this study showed that conscientiousness positively affected academic performance indirectly through academic motivation, but also that it is a condition for the indirect impact of extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness.

Distal and proximal associates of academic performance at secondary level: A mediation model of personality and self-efficacy

“…Conscientiousness supports and optimises achievement because its operational content includes promptness, consolidation, planning, organisation, sustained effort and motivation, and Conscientious students use their time and opportunities well and are more likely to stay the course (De Feyter, Caers, Vigna & Beings, 2012). Although Conscientiousness has the primacy in predictive validity from the FFM, Openness to Experience is the factor that directly relates to cognitive ability (Harris, Vernon & Jang, 2005).…”

Relationship Between Cyber Plagiarism and the Big Five Personality Traits: An Empirical Study in a Chilean University

“…In the past 20 years the five factor model has been widely used (Matzler and Renzl, 2007), and has been recognized that it captures most of the individual differences in patterns of behaviour (De Feyter et al, 2012). Wikls and colleagues (Wilks et al, 2016) summarized the central findings of studies on the relationship between the big five and deviant behaviours.…”

The Role of Personality and Subject-Specific Motivation in Students' Achievement in Math and Mother Tongue

“…It is consistently found to be positively related to student achievement in math (Liem, Lau, & Nie, 2008;Kenney-Benson, Pomerantz, Ryan, & Patrick, 2006;Puklek Levpušček & Zupančič, 2009), reading (Pečjak, Bucik, Gradišar, & Peklaj, 2006;Pečjak, Kolić Vehovec, & Podlesek, 2014) and writing (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007). Self-efficacy impacts academic achievement through meaningful cognitive engagement -better attention and the use of better (meta)cognitive strategies (Pečjak et al, 2014;Walker, Greene, & Mansell, 2006), as well as through motivational strategies (De Feyter et al, 2012;Wolters & Rosenthal, 2000). Students with higher self-efficacy are more persistent with learning assignments and more willing to put in a lot of effort, all of which leads to higher academic achievement.…”

“…Most previous research on relationships between personality and motivational dimensions and academic achievement was performed in university (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003;De Feyter, Caers, Vigna, & Berings, 2012;Komarraju, Karau, & Schmeck, 2009) or in primary school students (Smrtnik Vitulić & Zupančič, 2013). To a far lesser extent, these variables were investigated in upper secondary education students (Peklaj et al, 2015), and even then in the final years (Shams et al, 2011;Vasalampi et al, 2014).…”