Big Five personality traits as predictors of the academic success of university and college students in early childhood education

Abstract

Academic success in early childhood teacher education is important because it provides a foundation for occupational development in terms of professional competence, the quality of educational practices, as well as career success. Consequently, identifying factors that can explain differences in academic success is an important research task. Previous research has indicated that the Big Five personality traits can predict academic success in tertiary education even when other predictors have been accounted for. However, there is a lack of research regarding students in early childhood education. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of the Big Five on the academic success of college and university students in Germany who were studying early childhood education. Data from 567 college students and 270 university students were used. Several socio-demographic variables and the school-leaving Grade Point Average (GPA) served as controls. As hypothesised, students with higher conscientiousness also had better college and university GPAs. Furthermore, higher conscientiousness was associated with higher study satisfaction but only for college students. Unexpectedly, neuroticism was not negatively related to study satisfaction. In addition, there were exploratory findings concerning the effects of agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for research and practice. In particular, the consequences with regard to the preparation of students in early childhood education are discussed.