Learning Style, Personality Traits and Intelligence as Predictors of College Academic Performance
Author(s): Adrian Furnham
Abstract: Students completed various tests soon after arriving at university: the NEO-PI-R measure of the Big Five Personality Traits (Costa & McCrae, 1992); the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) (Biggs, 1978) and four measures of Cognitive Ability: the Wonderlic Personnel Test (Wonderlic, 1992), the Baddeley Reasoning Test (Baddeley, 1968), the Ravens Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1965) and the General Knowledge Test (Lynn & Irwing, 2002). One year later they completed comprehensive essay-based exams. The first study (N = 178) showed Conscientiousness and General intelligence to be the only significant predictor of overall first year grade accounting for 11% of the variance. The second study (N = 93) showed that ability and non-ability factors differed in terms of their predictive validity depending on the exams taken. Individual difference factors account for around ten per cent of the variance in college examination success.
Keywords: Cognitive styles; Learning strategies; Academic achievement; Higher education; Intellect; Personality
Pages: 117-128
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