Predicting grade point average from the hybrid model of learning in personality: consistent findings from Ugandan and Australian students

Jackson developed a hybrid model of learning in personality, known as the Learning Styles Profiler (LSP), which seeks to explain personality in terms of biological, socio‐cognitive and experiential processes. The hybrid model argues that functional learning outcomes can be understood in terms of how cognitions and experiences re‐express sensation seeking as functional learning. In two studies from Uganda and Australia (n = 136 and n = 290 respectively), grade point average (GPA) of students was successfully predicted from the hybrid model. Results show evidence of three indirect pathways from sensation seeking through cognitions to GPA and provide a new understanding of the way in which personality can predict performance.     

Adolescents' Attitudes to the Role of Women

Over 500 British adolescents aged between 12 and 20 completed a questionnaire concerning their attitudes to the role of women. Relatively few of the 27 items yielded high consensus among the subjects. There were numerous sex differences which showed males to be more traditional and conservative in their attitudes to women than females. About half the items yielded significant age differences, but almost none class differences, with older children being more liberal and egalitarian in their attitude. By and large, these findings are in accordance with previous studies in the area. The results are discussed in terms of the socialisation of sex differences.     

Cognitive ability,learning approaches and personality correlates of general knowledge

The relationship between general knowledge (GK) and cognitive ability (IQ and abstract reasoning), learning approaches, and personality (‘big five’ traits and typical intellectual engagement) was investigated in a sample of 101 British undergraduates. As predicted, GK was positively correlated with cognitive ability (more so with IQ than with abstract reasoning), typical intellectual engagement, and openness to experience. A hierarchical regression showed that IQ was the strongest predictor of GK, explaining 26% of GK variance. However, openness (15%) added incremental validity to the variance explained. These results are discussed in relation to previous findings in the field of GK and the personality–intelligence interface.     

Protestant ethic endorsement,personality, and general intelligence

To learn if Protestant ethic endorsement predicted intelligence controlling for the big five personality factors, 364 college students from England and the United States completed a 65-item multifaceted work ethic endorsement measure, the 50-item Wonderlic Personnel Test, and a 60-item measure of the big five personality factors. A hierarchical multiple regression revealed that, after controlling for respondent's sex and the big five, work ethic facets accounted for 5.6% of the variability in Wonderlic scores. However, the direction of the relationship between PWE facets and Wonderlic scores depended on the PWE facet in question. Furthermore, the facets accounted for more variability than did a composite work ethic score. The discussion focuses on the multidimensional nature of PWE endorsement and future research with this construct.     

The correspondence of public perceptions of graduates’ life chances and university departmental funding

Very little prior research has examined public perceptions of research funding and the life chances associated with various fields of study. In the present task, 315 members of the Austrian general public rated 34 higher-education courses in terms of funding cuts or increases, and the perceived life chances of graduates, respectively. The results showed a high degree of correspondence in the ratings of both questionnaires. Overall, professional and biological stream courses were rated the most favourably, whereas arts and humanities courses were rated the least favourably. Participants’ demographic variables had little influence on their decisions. The implications of these findings for the way higher education is managed and organised are discussed.     

Mainly Openness: The relationship between the Big Five personality traits and learning approaches

In order to examine the relationship between broad personality traits and learning approaches, 852 university students completed the NEO-FFI [Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] and SPQ [Biggs, J. B. (1987). The Study Process Questionnaire manual. Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research], which assess personality and learning approaches, respectively. Seven previous studies were used to generate hypotheses on the relationship between these two measures, but only the positive link between Openness to Experience and Deep learning was supported by both correlational and structural equation modelling tests. Openness was also found to be negatively linked to Surface learning, but other Big Five traits were not saliently associated with learning approaches. Results indicate that the overlap between learning approaches and personality traits is lower than previously suggested. Implications are discussed.     

Personality traits and intelligence predict academic school grades

This study examines the extent to which personality traits and intelligence scores predict school level academic performance (AP), (British GCSE: General Certificate of Secondary Education; America Grade 10) in different disciplines. The participant sample consisted of approximately 250 school pupils from three schools in the South East of England. A series of hierarchical regressions were performed with participant discipline-specific subject grades being the criterion variable and demographic, as well and intelligence and personality test scores, the predictor variables. For overall grade intelligence accounted for a fifth of the variance and personality an incremental validity of 8%. Whilst a combination of intelligence, personality and sex accounted for around a quarter of the variance in all four core subjects the pattern was rather different for elected subjects. The results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of psychometric assessments of candidates at selection.     

Assessing pupils’ intelligence through self,parental, and teacher estimates

This study examined the accuracy of self‐ and other‐estimated intelligence in relation to tested cognitive ability and gender. Three groups of raters were examined: 187 (102 male, 85 female; mean age 14.33 years, SD = .32) pupils of single‐sex comprehensive schools, 109 (55 mothers and 54 fathers) parents, and six teachers of the pupils. Pupils estimated their own overall IQ, while their parents and teachers estimated the pupils’ overall, mathematical, spatial, and verbal abilities. Self‐ and other‐estimates were compared to each other, and to the child’s psychometric test scores in verbal, quantitative, and figural/non‐verbal reasoning ability. Results suggested that participants were reasonably accurate at estimating pupils’ intelligence – teachers significantly more so than parents, and pupils significantly more so than fathers. Although both parents significantly overestimated their child’s IQ, this overestimation was more pronounced in fathers.     

Typical intellectual engagement as a byproduct of openness,learning approaches,and self‐assessed intelligence

Students (n = 328) from US and UK universities completed four self‐report measures related to intellectual competence: typical intellectual engagement (TIE), openness to experience, self‐assessed intelligence (SAI), and learning approaches. Confirmatory data reduction was used to examine the structure of TIE and supported five major factors: reading and information seeking, intellectual avoidance, directed complex problem solving, abstract thinking, and intellectual pursuits as a primary focus. These factors were significantly and positively associated with deep learning, openness, and SAI, and negatively related to surface learning. Other correlates of TIE were more factor‐dependent. In general, correlations suggested that TIE is related to, but different from, the other intellectual competence constructs examined. Results are discussed in relation to the typical performance approach to intelligence and the importance of TIE with regards to the intrinsic motivation to learn.     

The little emperor: Chinese parents’ assessment of their own,their partner’s and their only child’s intelligence

This study set out to examine whether Chinese parents, more than people from other nations, over-estimate the intelligence of their son (little emperor) compared to their daughter. In this study, 155 pairs of married couples from mainland China estimated their own, their partner’s and their only child’s overall intelligence and 13 “multiple intelligences.” They also completed a short measure of the Big Five personality traits. Replicating previous studies, fathers rated themselves higher than mothers for almost all types of intelligence. Results revealed, however, no parental sex differences in the estimates of children’s multiple intelligences. Both parents attributed higher overall, verbal, and musical intelligence, but lower existential intelligence to their child than to themselves. Multiple regressions indicated that estimates of verbal, logical–mathematical, spatial and intrapersonal intelligence were the best predictors of estimates of overall intelligence. Participants’ openness and neuroticism were significant predictors of self-rated intelligence. The results were interpreted in relation to specific Chinese social and cultural influences, though there seemed to be no “little emperor” effect.