A META-ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BIG FIVE PERSONALITY

TRAITS AND STUDENTS ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Nur Safwati Ibrahim, Nur Syaliza Hanim Che Yusof, Nor Fatihah Abd Razak, Nur Dalila Norshahidi
Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
safwati_ibrahim@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Personality is likely to play significant roles in influencing students' academic achievement. Several
studies have shown that personality factors will predict academic achievement over and above
students' ability. The purpose of this study was to explore the correlation between the five higher
order personality dimensions that are Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience,
Agreeableness and Neuroticism called the `Big Five' personality traits (Costa et al., 2006) and
students' academic achievement measured by GPA. This study is conducted by review the recent
empirical literature on the correlation between the Big Five personality traits and GPA. This study
found that out of 64 studies, only 6 individual studies were met the criteria to be included in this
meta-analysis. The data analyses involved in this study are variability estimation, Chi Square test of
heterogeneity (Cochrans' Q), I2 heterogeneity index (Higgins and Thompson, 2002) and random effect
models. This meta-analysis indicates that Conscientiousness is the best dimension of the Big Five
personalities that are highly correlates to GPA compared to others dimension.

Field of Research: Meta-Analysis, Big Five personalities, academic achievement.

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1. Introduction

Education sector is the one of the most important industries and playing a vital role in national
development. For the development country, high quality of education will contribute a great impact
on the countries social, economic and political system. At present, the development of self-concept
among the students is quite worrying. Most students have low self-concept and they are so passive
and negative. Without they realize, those attitude could affect their academic achievement.
Therefore, it is pertinent for educators to be aware and to study what factors that can affect the
student achievement. One of the studies conducted by Abu-Bakar et al. (2010) on 1484 local
university students who were follow the education, science, humanities, agriculture/ technical/
engineering programs has shown that there is a positive significant correlation between student's
attitude and academic achievement while the other study found that motivation and attitude were
the best predictors of student's academic achievement (Hendricks, 1997). Besides that, Mahyuddin
et al. (2009) also found a significant but low positive correlation between students' academic
motivation and their academic achievement. Several studies have examined the relationship
between grades and cognitive ability and it is clearly indicate that there is a positive correlation
between these two factors (Mathiasen (1984); Mouw and Khanna (1993); Passons (1967); Schneider
and Overton (1983); Wolfe and Johnson (1995)). Cognitive ability is one of the important factors that
can affect the students' achievement (Ackerman and Heggestad, 1997) however Chamorro-Premuzic
and Furnam (2006) noted that cognitive ability alone is insufficient for student to success in
academic. Thus, researchers have sought to identify non-cognitive predictors of academic
achievement, including variables related to personality dispositions. Rather, their concern is with the
most recent theoretical approach to study of personality traits and academic achievement based on
the Big Five of personality traits (Costa et al., 2006). Therefore, this study aims to investigate the
effect of one non-cognitive predictor of academic achievement which is personality and this

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research more focus on Big Five personality traits on student's academic achievement. Based on the
recent empirical literature on individual study, the correlations between these two factors were
combined in meta-analysis.

2. Big Five personality factors and academic achievement

In psychology, the Big Five factors of personality can be described as the five dimensions of
personality that is used to describe the human personality. The Big Five personalities are
Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Koning et
al. (2012) conducted a study on student characteristics and academic achievement and found that
GPA has a strong positive relation with personality traits Conscientiousness. It is consistent with
research findings on first-year performance in higher education studied by O'Connor and Paunonen
(2007). While the other Big Five personality traits only weak and inconsistent related to academic
achievement which is line with prior studies from Poropat (2009). The correlation among GPA,
vocabulary, personality, and time management for all 556 students was examined by MacCann et al.
(2012). In his study, he reports group differences for all variables by enrollment status (part- versus
full-11 time), sex and age and it was found that age was significantly correlated with time
management, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. It means that the older students tended to
score higher on all three variables. Besides that, he also revealed that of the Big Five personality
traits, Conscientiousness implement more effective in time management practices, which allow
them to succeed academically. This finding replicates the work of McKenzie and Gow (2004).

About 308 undergraduate students was completed the Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and the
Academic Motivations Scale (AMS) and their college Grade Point Average (GPA) was reported. The
result was shown that intrinsic motivation to accomplish (individuals tend to have an internal locus
of control) and GPA was partially mediated by Conscientiousness. It clearly shown that the
combination of intrinsic motivation and Conscientiousness become the strongest predictor of GPA
(Komarraju et al., 2011). Lounsbury et al. (2003) studied the relationship between general
intelligence, Big Five personalities and a measure of work drive to course grade measured by GPA in
undergraduate psychology course among 175 students. The correlation analyses were found that
there is a positive relationship between Conscientiousness and Openness and GPA in a psychology
course. This result mirrored to Paunonen and Ashton (2001).

De Raad and Schouwenburg (1996) suggested that Big Five factors of Extraversion,
Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience are most relevant in educational setting and each of
these factors were positively correlated with academic success and contrast to Neuroticism. This was
supported by Duff et al. (2004) study on the relationship between personalities, approach to
learning and academic performance measured as a composite measure, a grade point average (GPA)
achieved over the course of an academic year.

3. Methodology

3.1 Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis refers to analysis of analyses where the result from different studies was
mathematically combined (Glass, 1976). That is referring to the statistical analysis of large collection
of analysis results from individual studies for the purpose of integrating the findings. Over 64
journals from different disciplines such as business, education, psychology, ecology, medical and
statistics that have been review, only six were fulfill the criteria and included in this study. Table 3.1
summarized the correlation between Big Five personalities and students academic achievement
(GPA) reported by papers that met criteria for this study.

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Table 3.1: Summary of studies reporting correlations between Big Five personality and students
academic achievement
Sample
Measure size Correlation
Study
Big Five Academic
Personalities Acheivement n N E O A C
Koning et al.
(2012) FFPI GPA 1753 0.13 -0.11 -0.05 0.01 0.23
MacCann et al.
(2012) IPIP GPA 556 0.09 -0.06 0.13 0.13 0.18
Komarraju et al.
(2011) NEO-FFI GPA 308 0.00 0.07 0.13 0.22 0.29
Kappe and Flier
(2010) NEO-FFI GPA 140 -0.06 0.05 -0.08 0.14 0.46
Duff et al.
(2004) 16PFi GPA 146 -0.14 0.06 0.07 0.12 0.21
Lounsbury ey al.
(2003) PSI GPA 175 -0.11 0.01 0.16 -0.01 0.18
Note. N=Neuroticism; E=Extraversion; O=Openness to experience; A=Agreeableness; C=Conscientiousness;
GPA=Grade point average; FFPI=Five Factor Personality Inventory; IPIP=International Personality Item Pool;
NEO-FFI=Five Factor Inventory; 16PFi=Sixteen Personality Factors Questionnaire; PSI=Personal Style Inventory

3.2 Hunter and Schmidt (1990) bare bones" Approach

This meta-analysis study measured the common effect size of correlation, r. When the studies met
the criteria for inclusion in this meta-analysis study, a combination of correlation value between Big
Five personalities and GPA can be computed by using Hunter and Schmidt (1990) approach. This
approach also had been used in the previous meta-analysis study about the correlations between
variables (Robbins et al. (2004); Francis et al. (1991) and Linden et al. (2010)).

The basic idea in Hunter and Schmidt (1990) is to estimate the variability of the distribution of effect
sizes (correlation). In this approach, the total variance of observed study outcomes is estimated, and
the variance due to artifacts such as sampling error, reliability of measurement and range restriction
is subtracted to yield a residual variance. In the Hunter and Schmidt (1990) bare bones" approach,
only sampling error is considered as a sources of artifactual variance and this estimated value is
consider as the estimates sampling variance for a meta-analysis.

3.3 Heterogeneity Statistic

Heterogeneity in meta-analysis refers to the variation in study outcomes between studies. There is a
variation among the studies since the sample from each study are not taken from the same
population. Thus, a statistical heterogeneity would exist and the sample estimates would differ
substantially. An index of heterogeneity, I2 can be defined by using Higgins and Thompson (2002)
and Chi-squared heterogeneity statistic, Cochrans Q. Heterogeneity index, I2 can be described as the
percentage of variation across studies that are due to heterogeneity rather than chance hence
Cochrans Q test measure heterogeneity among studies. If the statistical heterogeneity is presence,
then random effect meta-analysis is performed. Random effect model allowed the true effect may
vary from study to study.

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4. Finding & Discussion

4.1 Variability Estimation

In order to estimate the variability distribution of effect size by using Hunter and Schmidt (1990)
bare bones" approach, the results across studies was accumulate.

Table 4.1: The Hunter and Schmidt (1990) bare bone variability estimation
Correlation
Study
N E O A C
Koning et al. (2012) 0.13 -0.11 -0.05 0.01 0.23
MacCann et al. (2012) 0.09 -0.06 0.13 0.13 0.18
Komarraju et al. (2011) 0.00 0.07 0.13 0.22 0.29
Kappe and Flier (2010) -0.06 0.05 -0.08 0.14 0.46
Duff et al. (2004) -0.14 0.06 0.07 0.12 0.21
Lounsbury ey al. (2003) -0.11 0.01 0.16 -0.01 0.18
Weight mean 0.075 0.003 0.06 0.102 0.258
Observed variance 0.005 0.009 0.014 0.014 0.028
Estimate variance 0.0019 0.002 0.0019 0.0019 0.0017
Note. N=Neuroticism; E=Extraversion; O=Openness to experience; A=Agreeableness; C=Conscientiousness

Table 4.1 summarized the correlation values between the Big Five personalities and students'
academic achievement (GPA) of individual studies. Based on the correlation values above, each
study provides a different correlations estimate of the underlying relationship with the population.
However, Conscientiousness found to be positively correlates to GPA for each study. By involving the
accumulation of correlation, r of the individual studies using the weight estimate, the largest
observed variance is Conscientiousness (0.028) while the smallest one is Neuroticism (0.005). This
indicates that there is a large variability of the correlation values for Conscientiousness among the
studies. However, the estimate variance due to sampling error was shown that Conscientiousness
(0.0017) is the smallest one followed by Neuroticism, Openness, Agreeableness and Extraversion. By
implemented Hunter and Schmidt (1990) approach, it can be concluded that Conscientiousness is
the best Big Five personalities that highly correlate with students' academic achievement since the
basic idea of Hunter and Schmidt (1990) stated that the estimate variance due to sampling error can
be used to estimate the distribution of the effect size. This result is consistent with the findings from
Diseth (2003), Noftle and Robins (2007) and Poropat (2009).

4.2 Heterogeneity Statistic

Since Conscientiousness was found to be the best component of Big Five personalities that highly
contribute to students' academic achievement (GPA), further analysis done focus only on that
component. A summary result for combination of individual studies based on the correlation
between Conscientiousness and GPA is presented in Table 4.2.

Table 4.2: Heterogeneity statistics of individual studies for the correlation between
Conscientiousness and GPA
Measurement Estimate
Number of studies 6
Chi-squared heterogeneity 29.850
Heterogeneity index 83.250

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Based on Table 4.2, Cochrans Q (29.850) found higher than 11.070, the critical value for 5 degrees of
freedom with 95% level of significance found in a Chi-square distribution table. Since the calculated
Cochrans Q is higher than tables value, the null is rejected. So, there is an enough evidence to
conclude that the studies were not similar. This indicates that there is a presence of heterogeneity
between the individual studies. The index of heterogeneity defined by Higgins and Thompson (2002),
I2 is 83.25%. This finding was shown that Conscientiousness has high heterogeneity within studies.
Thus, this study applied random effects models since the heterogeneity within studies present.

In random effect models, the weights of each study were adjusted to get the values of an adjusted
Chi-square heterogeneity and adjusted Higgins and Thompson (2002). The result is given in Table
4.3.

Table 4.3: Random effect model of the correlation between Conscientiousness and GPA
Measurement Estimate
Constant value 0.003
Chi-squared heterogeneity (adjusted) 29.281
Heterogeneity index (adjusted) 82.924

The summary table above clearly indicates that the value of adjusted Chi-square heterogeneity for a
random sample (29.281) is still higher than 11.070 (tabulated value) therefore the null hypothesis is
rejected. This random effect models also represent that there is heterogeneity between the
individual studies. The adjusted Higgins and Thompson for a random effect models is 82.92% and
this random effect models also shown that there is a high heterogeneity for Conscientiousness
between the individual studies in this meta-analysis.

4.3 Meta-Analysis Result

The meta-analysis effects summary of the correlation between Conscientiousness and GPA for all
individual studies are represented in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4: The correlation meta-analysis result-statistics for each study

Upper
Study Point estimate Standard error Variance Lower limit limit
Koning et al. (2012) 0.180 0.032 0.001 0.117 0.243
MacCann et al. (2012) 0.210 0.038 0.001 0.136 0.284
Komarraju et al. (2011) 0.460 0.057 0.003 0.348 0.572
Kappe and Flier (2010) 0.290 0.031 0.001 0.230 0.350
Duff et al. (2004) 0.180 0.018 0.000 0.145 0.215
Lounsbury ey al. (2003) 0.230 0.012 0.000 0.208 0.253
Effect Summary 0.217 0.013 0.000 0.193 0.242

Table 4.4 include the correlation values as a point estimate, standard error, variances, confidence
intervals for each study and the effect summary or pooled estimates for all studies. Since zero (no
effect) is not included in the 95% confidence interval for all individual studies, it clearly indicates that
there is a statistically significant difference in the effects of the correlations for all studies.

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5. Conclusion and Future Recommendation

5.1 Conclusion

This study was carried out to examine the relationship between the five higher order personality
dimensions that is the Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience,
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) and students' academic achievement (GPA). The data for this
study is based on the recent empirical literatures that reported the relationship between the Big Five
personality traits and GPA. This study was found that among that five dimensions of personality,
Conscientiousness is the best dimension that are highly correlate to GPA by referring the estimate
variability due to sampling error by Hunter and Schmidt (1990). Theoretically, this study is
homogeneous in the context of measure the correlation between Big Five personality and GPA
however in order to test the heterogeneity among the individual studies, Cochran's Q and Higgins
and Thompson (2002), I2 was used and found out that the studies are not similar and there is a high
heterogeneity between Conscientiousness and GPA among all the individual studies.

5.2 Recommendation

In order to increase the precision of the meta-analysis study, the number of studies should be
increased. So that, the standard error of the weighted average correlation, weighted mean
correlation will reduce. Hence, the confidence interval will become smaller. Therefore, to increase
the number of studies, the scope of the study should become wider, not be limited to the Big Five
personality traits and GPA only.

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