The Relationship of Student and Faculty Field Dependence/Independence Congruence to Student Academic Achievement

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to report the findings of a study concerning (a) the relationship between academic achievement and student-faculty personality congruence in terms of field dependence and (b) the predictability of field dependence by age, sex, and cumulative grade point average (GPA). The level of field dependence of 386 students and their instructors was identified by the Group Embedded Figures Test. A formula was employed to describe the congruence of personality traits between students and faculty. The correlational analysis supported the belief that student's course grades and GPA were very slightly greater when there was similarity rather than dissimiliarity of personality type with that of their instructor. A multiple regression analysis indicated that the cumulative GPA and sex as predictors contributed a statistically significant amount of variance to the field dependence/independence measure but that age did not.