Conscientiousness and Cognitive Ability as Predictors of Academic Achievement: Evidence of Synergistic Effects From Integrative Data Analysis

Abstract

Cognitive ability is the most powerful predictor of academic achievement. However, increasing attention is being paid to the role of personality traits in students’ academic achievement. Results indicate incremental effects beyond cognitive ability, especially for conscientiousness. Investigating the interplay of conscientiousness and cognitive ability can increase understanding of students’ academic achievement and learning. This study examined whether there are interaction effects of a synergistic or compensatory nature. We applied the approach of integrative data analysis, using four highly powered data sets with a total of 18,637 upper secondary school students in Germany to investigate this research question across four different achievement measures and three educational domains (i.e., school subjects). We used an integrative approach and pooled the results across the four samples to obtain an average estimate of the hypothesized interaction effects. Findings support a small synergistic interaction, indicating that conscientiousness moderates the association between cognitive ability and achievement. This means conscientiousness can enhance the positive effects of cognitive ability. In conclusion, results highlight the role of the type of academic measure used and the domain investigated in understanding how personality and achievement are related, providing evidence of the interplay between effort-related traits such as conscientiousness and cognitive ability.

Is There Evidence for Intelligence-by-Conscientiousness Interaction in the Prediction of Change in School Grades from Age 11 to 15 Years?

“…Our study addressed a couple of aspects. First, most analyses are based on students in late adolescence or early adulthood who received their grades in the academic track of high school or in university or college (e.g., Meyer et al 2022 ; Di Domenico and Fournier 2015 ). It is therefore necessary to investigate samples that include not only academic track students.…”

“…In addition, young and middle adolescence is a crucial time with respect to personality and cognitive development. Second, most studies relied on cross-sectional data (e.g., Bergold and Steinmayr 2018 ; Meyer et al 2022 , but see Brandt and Lechner 2022 ) that impeded causal conclusions and the examination of the development of academic success over time. Both intelligence and conscientiousness (and their interaction) might not only predict academic success at one given time point, but also changes therein.…”

“…Unlike Brandt and Lechner ( 2022 ), who analyzed competence gains in reading and math as outcomes, we focused on school grades because grades are of higher relevance for the students’ lives than competences are as they are imperative for vocational success and subsequently predict social inequality in later life ( Kingston et al 2003 ). Additionally, based on the findings and argumentation of, for instance, Hübner et al ( 2022 ) and Meyer et al ( 2022 ), we assume that conscientiousness is more strongly associated with grades than with standardized test scores because grades are more dependent on teachers’ evaluations and a conscientious working style helps to fulfill the classroom requirement. It should thus be more likely to find statistically significant interaction effects for the prediction of school grades.…”

“…Whereas conscientiousness was an important predictor at all educational stages, agreeableness and openness were more predictive during elementary school (see also, Andersen et al 2020 ). Furthermore, recent studies have demonstrated that openness is more important for academic achievement operationalized via standardized scholastic achievement tests whereas conscientiousness is more predictive of grades ( Hübner et al 2022 ; Meyer et al 2022 ; Tetzner et al 2020 ). Indeed, further studies have confirmed medium correlations between self-reported grades ( Cucina et al 2016 ; Dumfart and Neubauer 2016 ) or teachers’ evaluations of school performance ( Demetriou et al 2019 ) and conscientiousness.…”

“…On the other end of the ability continuum, intelligence was less predictive of grades for students who displayed lower levels of conscientiousness. In a very large pooled sample of German students from upper secondary schools, Meyer et al ( 2022 ) recently found evidence for synergistic interactions predicting both standardized tests and grades, albeit with small effect sizes. Sorjonen et al ( 2021 ) also noted that most of the personality-by-intelligence interactions in the prediction of academic achievement (i.e., GPA in an adult sample) were synergistic in nature, especially with regard to conscientiousness and related traits.…”