Predicting Academic Success For First Semester Engineering Students Using Personality Trait Indicators

The dual factors of attracting and retaining talented students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are critical issues for building the technology work force. When students enter colleges/universities and declare an engineering major, retention becomes the primary focus. Retention of talented students is a significant issue in engineering programs and improvement of retention rates can be a powerful tool in increasing the number of engineering graduates needed for national and global competitiveness. A number of studies have examined predictors of success for entering freshman engineering students including SAT scores and high school performance. The goal of this present work is to identify other personality factors that are critical for retention. Knowing this information, timely and targeted intervention can be applied to improve student success. The area of internal motivation is often proposed as a success factor and generally studies have neglected this area due to the difficulty in measuring and evaluating. This study considers the results of the Big Five and locus of control tests given to a group of first semester engineering freshmen. Factors of these tests were evaluated as tools to measure student motivation to succeed. The levels of these traits were then employed in a multifactor linear regression model to predict overall grade point average for the first semester. The study found that two of the Big Five factors along with locus of control were significant prediction variables for first semester grade point average.