Factor Analysis of Measures of Aptitude, Intelligence; Personality, and Performance in High School Subjects

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to use factor analysis to demonstrate relationships among aptitude, intelligence, personality, and performance in various high school subjects. Over five hundred English-speaking tenth grade students in university-preparatory courses were involved. Scores on the Differential Aptitude and Henmon-Nelson Tests and on the High School Personality Questionnaire were obtained. School marks, standard ised within schools, were used as measures of performance in seven school subjects. The data were subjected to factor analysis, with oblique rotation to simple structure. Five factors whose corresponding eigenvalues were greater than unity were obtained. Three of these factors, loading on personality variables only, were identified as similar to Cattell's second stratum factors: invia, anxiety, and cortertia. A fourth factor loaded on subtests of the Differential Aptitude and Henmon-Nelson Tests, and was identified as a verbal ability factor. This factor had only small loadings on school marks and personality traits. The final factor was loaded on the school subject marks, and was identified as academic performance. The interrelations between aptitude, personality, and marks in various subjects, which had been expected, did not produce factors which were composites of variables from each of these areas.