Constellation, le dépôt institutionnel de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

Résumé

Personality provides a measure of how an individuals thinks, communicates with other people, reacts to different situations, deals with stress, sets goals, works to achieve those goals as well as how he/she analyzes information and handles situations. During the past century numerous researchers have attempted to identify the role of personality in several indicators of career success (such as job performance and satisfaction) and occupation matching. Psychological researchers have regrouped a number of major personality traits that can affect and predict the global performance of individuals. One of the most important models of personality that has generated a considerable amount of interest is the Big Five factor model or FFM which classifies human personality into five broad factors or dimensions; conscientiousness, neuroticism (or emotional stability), extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness. Our study based on this model as a framework for measuring personality and focuses on the three most powerful and influential factors (conscientiousness, extraversion, and emotional stability) that have been shown in previous studies to be most consistently correlated with global individuals performance (whether academic or job performance). Our purpose is to investigate whether there is a relationship between these super factors of personality and an individual's performance, in order to identify which personality trait(s) can play a role and to what extent they can predict in individuals' performance. Academic performance has been assessed in the present study as an example of global individual performance with the purpose of studying the possibility of predicting global individual performance including academic or job performance by personality traits. This is because personality traits which can predict and lead to academic success and achievement can also predict somewhat high job performance and success.

We assessed the academic performance through exam grades of two groups of 209 undergraduate students from two different academic courses: Marketing and Accounting in the Department of Administration Sciences at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi. As well, we evaluated personality factors through a home-questionnaire of Page 2 of 97

37 questions based on Big Five factors and some other personality traits not included in FFM such as locus of control, self-esteem and life and job (academic) satisfaction. We had addressed the questionnaire to the participants of each course in the beginning of the academic year and then they took several written examinations at the end of their academic year. We designed each item of the questionnaire to evaluate a particular factor of personality and each factor of personality was evaluated by a set of items or questions -9 to 10 questions in average- in the questionnaire. Then we conducted correlation and regression analyses to examine the correlation and the predictive ability of each item of the three selected factors and the exam grades of the participants.

Results showed conscientiousness to be the factor the most significantly and consistently correlated with grades in both courses. The correlations between this factor and exams grades ranged from 0.171(p<.05) to 0.389 (p< .001), so we can say that scoring in conscientiousness is significantly related to academic performance in the sample.

The second selected factor, extraversion, showed significant negative correlation with grades of both courses. The correlations between this factor and grades of the participants ranged from -0.175 (p< .05) to -.2, (p< .01). This means that extraversion level is significantly associated with academic achievement in the sample while we founded no significant correlation between grades and the third selected factor: emotional stability. We propose possible explanations for these findings, theoretical and practical implications as well as perspectives for future research.

The present study provides evidence supporting the validity of Big Five factors of personality as a potential tool for predicting individuals' global academic and job performance.