Type of High School Predicts Academic Performance at University Better than Individual Differences.

Benjamin Banai,Višnja Perin

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0163996

Abstract

Psychological correlates of academic performance have always been of high relevance to psychological research. The relation between psychometric intelligence and academic performance is one of the most consistent and well-established findings in psychology. It is hypothesized that intelligence puts a limit on what an individual can learn or achieve. Moreover, a growing body of literature indicates a relationship between personality traits and academic performance. This relationship helps us to better understand how an individual will learn or achieve their goals. The aim of this study is to further investigate the relationship between psychological correlates of academic performance by exploring the potentially moderating role of prior education. The participants in this study differed in the type of high school they attended. They went either to gymnasium, a general education type of high school that prepares students specifically for university studies, or to vocational school, which prepares students both for the labour market and for further studies. In this study, we used archival data of psychological testing during career guidance in the final year of high school, and information about the university graduation of those who received guidance. The psychological measures included intelligence, personality and general knowledge. The results show that gymnasium students had greater chances of performing well at university, and that this relationship exceeds the contribution of intelligence and personality traits to university graduation. Moreover, psychological measures did not interact with type of high school, which indicates that students from different school types do not profit from certain individual characteristics.

Highlights

Since the early days of psychology, prediction of academic performance (AP) has been of high relevance to psychologists [1, 2]
The results show that gymnasium students had greater chances of performing well at university, and that this relationship exceeds the contribution of intelligence and personality traits to university graduation
Weak-to-moderate positive correlations were found among all measures of intelligence and general knowledge (GK), which is in line with the results of previous studies [12]

Summary

Introduction

Since the early days of psychology, prediction of academic performance (AP) has been of high relevance to psychologists [1, 2]. This is due to the importance of AP in the life of every individual–it confines the range of possible job opportunities, as well as career choices. High School Type, Individual Differences and Academic Performance financial outcomes [3]. High-school success has traditionally been used in research to predict AP [14,15,16], mostly operationalized as gradepoint average (GPA) or as a result in standardized tests (such as SAT in the USA). High-school GPAs has been widely used as university admission criteria

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