Premium
PERSONALITY ASSESSMENTS AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN A BOYS' GRAMMAR SCHOOL
Author(s) -
ASTINGTON E.
Publication year - 1960
Publication title -
british journal of educational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.557
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 2044-8279
pISSN - 0007-0998
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1960.tb01685.x
Subject(s) - psychology , extraversion and introversion , personality , grammar school , developmental psychology , dominance (genetics) , grammar , persistence (discontinuity) , social psychology , big five personality traits , mathematics education , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , philosophy , geotechnical engineering , gene , engineering
S ummary . This study has as its origin the observation that over 40 per cent. of grammar school candidates for the G.C.E. of the N.U.J.M.B. pass in fewer than three subjects. The hypothesis is considered that this unsatisfactory position might be improved by taking into account in 11+ selection those personality qualities which make for academic success. After a review of studies attempting to determine the personality qualities associated with academic success or failure, and after some preliminary experiments, it was decided to use teachers' ratings, class‐mates' ratings and a questionnaire as methods of assessment of personality. In 1953–4 and 1954–5, about 300 boys in five primary schools in a county borough were rated by their class teachers for persistence, independence, dominance, interest, nervousness and emotional stability. Some 700 boys in the maintained boys' grammar school in the same town were assessed in the same years for the same six qualities by the ratings of three teachers, classmates' ratings and a questionnaire; in addition, introversion‐extraversion and sociability were assessed by the questionnaire and sociability also by class mates' ratings. At all levels, successful boys received significantly higher ratings than unsuccessful boys for persistence, independence and interest; dominance seemed to have no consistent connection with academic achievement; successful boys showed a slight tendency to be considered more nervous but more emotionally stable; successful older boys tended to consider themselves less extraverted and less sociable, than their unsuccessful fellows. Grammar school teachers' ratings of persistence, independence and interest showed an average correlation of about ·60 with performance in internal school examinations and with G.C.E. achievement. They differentiated significantly between groups of G.C.E. candidates, matched on I.Q., but of contrasting G.C.E. performance. Ratings made in the second year of the grammar school predicted G.C.E. performance better that I.Q., but less well than second‐year examination performance. Primary school teachers' ratings of persistance, independence and interest showed an initially low correlation, which increased with time, with the boys' subsequent grammar school achievement. These personality ratings showed higher correlations with G.C.E. performance five years later than did I.Q., but were less good predictors than performance in the 11+ examination. On this evidence, the use of such ratings might be considered as an element in 11+ selection, but they ought not to be used as a substitute for the 11+ examination.