Open AccessPersonality traits and academic performance: Correcting self-assessed traits with vignettes
Author(s) -
Johan Coenen,
Bart H.H. Golsteyn,
Tom Stolp,
Dirk Tempelaar
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0248629
Subject(s) - conscientiousness , big five personality traits , preference , personality , psychology , scale (ratio) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , extraversion and introversion , statistics , mathematics , physics , quantum mechanics
In this study, we investigate whether Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Risk Preference relate to student performance in higher education. We employ anchoring vignettes to correct for heterogeneous scale use in these non-cognitive skills. Our data are gathered among first-year students at a Dutch university. The results show that Conscientiousness is positively related to student performance, but the estimates are strongly biased upward if we use the uncorrected variables. We do not find significant relationships for Emotional Stability but find that the point estimates are larger when using the uncorrected variables. Measured Risk Preference is negatively related to student performance, yet this is fully explained by heterogeneous scale use. These results indicate the importance of using more objective measurements of personality traits.