Personality, cognitive ability, and beliefs about intelligence as predictors of academic performance

Predicting academic success in higher education: what’s more important than being smart?

“…Years later, Cattell (1965) suggested that, for university students who had already been selected on intelligence, personality and motivation would be just as important for predicting academic achievement. Recent research has shown that personality accounts for variance in academic achievement over and above intelligence (Bratko et al 2006;Gilles and Bailleux 2001;Noftle and Robins 2007;Poropat 2009), and that personality may have even more predictive power than intelligence at the post-secondary levels of education (Conard 2006;Di Fabio and Busoni 2007;Furnham and Chamorro-Premuzic 2004;Furnham et al 2003;Petrides et al 2005).O 'Conner and Paunonen (2007) recently reviewed the studies concerning how well intelligence and personality factors predicted academic achievement at the post-secondary level and reiterated the earlier recommendations of Harris and Cattell. They offered a template for subsequent research and called upon researchers to: (a) use multiple predictors beyond intelligence, such as personality, motivation, and study habits, when predicting academic achievement; (b) use narrow measures of personality, in addition to the Big Five; (c) use multiple and specific measures, in addition to grade point average (GPA), to assess academic achievement; and (d) examine the direct (based on zero-order correlation) predictive utility of each predictor, as well as its incremental validity, in a multivariate context.…”

“…Years later, Cattell (1965) suggested that, for university students who had already been selected on intelligence, personality and motivation would be just as important for predicting academic achievement. Recent research has shown that personality accounts for variance in academic achievement over and above intelligence (Bratko et al 2006;Gilles and Bailleux 2001;Noftle and Robins 2007;Poropat 2009), and that personality may have even more predictive power than intelligence at the post-secondary levels of education (Conard 2006;Di Fabio and Busoni 2007;Furnham and Chamorro-Premuzic 2004;Furnham et al 2003;Petrides et al 2005).…”

The Structure of Students’ Motivation: Expectancies and Values in Taking Data Science Course

“…There is no doubt that cognitive abilities matter, but other student characteristics are significant, too. In higher education, particularly in selective universities, the selection process greatly diminishes the variation of intellectual skills of students [Furnham, Chamorro-Premuzic, McDougall 2002], increasing the role of such personal qualities as character traits, individual learning strategies and motivation as the reasons behind different levels of academic performance [Richardson, Abraham, Bond 2012].…”

An Exploratory Analysis of Personality, Attitudes, and Study Skills on the Learning Curve within a Team-based Learning Environment

“…29 Furnham found that learning style, personality traits, and intelligence accounted for around 10% of the variance in college examination success. 30 Of the studies that looked at personality traits, the introversion/extroversion scale did not seem to be predictive or associated with learning performance but may have been potentially related to learning strategies (ie, deep vs surface vs strategic) 31 or instructional techniques (ie, lecture vs interactive). 10 One finding of particular note was the lack of effect the number of practice problems completed before each assessment had on performance.…”