Abstract
The present study examined the relationship of personality, experience while studying, and academic performance. One hundred and seventy talented highschool students (68 males, 102 females) completed the Personality Research Form (PRF) and recorded their experience via the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). The results showed that controlling for ability, work orientation, a PRF factor, was a better predictor of grade than experience. However, an experiential variable, intrinsic motivation while studying, was related to the difficulty level of courses students took over the 4 years in high school. The results supported the notion that there are two kinds of motivation in scholastic achievement, one directed toward long-term goals, the other directed toward ongoing experience.
Copyright © 1991 John Wiley and Sons Inc. Republished with permission from the Journal of Personality, vol. 59, no 3, September 1991, pp. 539–574. Copyright © by Duke University Press – John Wiley and Sons.
The authors would like to thank Jean Nakamura, Ulrich Schiefele, Sam Whalen, the editors, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Tony Tam for his help in statistical analysis and his comments on the manuscript. The research reported in this article was supported by a grant given to the second author by the Spencer Foundation. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maria Wong, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5848 South University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.
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Notes
- 1.
The fact that 170 students filled out the PRF and 208 students completed the ESF raises some concern about the missing data. As far as we know, there was no systematic difference between students who continued to participate in the study and those that did not. We could find only one difference between these two groups of students: The more talented the students were thought to be by teachers, the more likely they were to participate. All students who were nominated in three or more areas (i.e., math, science, music, athletics, or art) agreed to participate; about 8 out of 10 of those with two talents agreed, whereas slightly less than half of the single-talent students did. Another possible reason for subject attrition may have to do with the amount of time required to participate in the study. It is possible that some students agreed to take part in the study initially without thinking too much about the amount of time and effort required. In the first year of the study, students were required to complete several questionnaires and to be interviewed at least once. It seems understandable that some students decided to withdraw from the study.
- 2.
The 20 variables in PRF Form E are abasement, achievement, affiliation, aggression, autonomy, change, cognitive structure, defendence, dominance, endurance, exhibition, harmavoidance, impulsivity, nurturance, order, play, sentience, social recognition, succorance, and understanding. The two validity scales are social desirability and infrequency (to identify invalid responses).
- 3.
Grade information for the third and fourth years of the study was still incomplete when this article was written. The first-year GPA was not chosen as a dependent variable because we wanted to find a variable that was measured at a different time from when information about personality and experience was collected. This could ensure that the relationship between personality, experience, and grade, if found, was not simply due to the fact that they were measured in the same year. In the regression analyses, the first-year GPA was not used as a control because it was very highly correlated with the second-year GPA, r(195) = 0.91, p < 0.0001.
- 4.
Some argue that standardized tests are not much different from school grades as achievement indices. In view of the high correlation between the PSAT and later academic success and the discrepancies between PSAT scores and grades, we believe that the PSAT represents a valid measure of student scholastic aptitude.
- 5.
We computed the regression analyses on the gifted scholars (talented mathematics and science students) and others (talented music, athletics, and art students) separately. The results were essentially the same as those for the whole group. However, PSAT scores do not reflect much about musical, athletic, and artistic ability. Similarly, GPAs provide little information about musical, athletic, and artistic excellence. Because we did not have good indicators of aptitude and performance in these domains, we think that the analyses are not very meaningful.
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Csikszentmihalyi, M., Wong, M.Mh. (2014). Motivation and Academic Achievement: The Effects of Personality Traits and the Quality of Experience. In: Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9094-9_22
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