The Big Five personality traits, goal orientations, and academic achievement

Abstract

In the past twenty years, educational researchers have intensely focused their interest on numerous internal and external factors that contribute to a students' academic achievement. In particular, some research has explored the relationship between students' motivational beliefs (e.g. self-efficacy, control perceptions, learning goal orientations) and their academic achievement, while others have investigated the role of students' personality traits in that achievement. However, not much research has examined the relationship between the Big Five traits, academic motivation, and academic achievement within the same study (Komarraju, Karau, & Schmeck, 2009). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether achievement goal orientations mediate the relationship between personality traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Intellect) and academic achievement.The participants were 501 (160 boys and 341 girls; Mage=16.19) high school students in Croatia. They answered questions about their final mid-term grade in chemistry (the Croatian academic grade scale ranges from 1-fail to 5-excellent) and completed two questionnaires: The IPIP Big-Five factor markers (Goldberg, 1999) and the Achievement Goals Questionnaire (Rovan & Jelić, 2010).The mediation analysis (a bootstrapping method) revealed that learning approach, performance-approach and work-avoidance goal orientations fully mediate the relationship between students' personality traits and their academic achievement, but only for Conscientiousness.