Individual Differences Research

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Individual Differences Research > Volume 10, Issue 3 (2012) > 117-128

Learning Style, Personality Traits and Intelligence as Predictors of College Academic Performance

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.