وجدان و خود انگیختگی به عنوانعوامل پیش بینی متقابل جبرانی GPAدر سطح دانشگاه

To help account for variability across studies in the predictive utility of conscientiousness, we proposed that conscientiousness and self-motivation mutually compensate for each other in predicting university-level academic performance. Consistent with this expectation, we found evidence of such mutual moderation in a sample of 377 college undergraduates. First, we found that conscientiousness and self-motivation compensated for each other in predicting university GPA: Students who were either high in conscientiousness or high in self-motivation had better academic performance (GPA) than those who were low in both conscientiousness and self-motivation. Second, these findings were still evident after we controlled for the students’ previous academic performance (high school rank) and academic ability (SAT/ACT). The study of mutually compensatory predictors not only offers the potential of developing better predictive models; it also helps to account for why some “main effect” predictors of university GPA are variable across studies in their degree of predictive utility.

Since 1903, when Alfred Binet initiated his research on psychometrics and intellectual ability in France, many studies have revealed that “intelligence” is the most important factor accounting for individuals’ academic performance. Intelligence is only part of the story, however. There are many factors apart from academic intelligence that can potentially influence an individual’s overall academic performance by influencing behaviors such as attending classes, doing homework, participating in class discussions, coping with stress during exams, and so on. Many studies have investigated personality variables in relation to academic performance. A number of these studies have examined correlations between the Big Five trait dimensions and academic performance. In general, the results of these studies have shown that conscientiousness is a fairly consistent predictor of academic performance, but that extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness have inconsistent effects (Busato et al., 2000, Chamorro-Premuzic and Furnham, 2003 and Gray and Watson, 2002). Conscientiousness, which refers to “socially prescribed impulse control” (Hogan & Ones, 1997), includes six facets in its conceptual structure: industriousness (hard working, ambitious, confident, and resourceful), order (planning and organized), self-control (cautious, levelheaded, and patient), traditionalism (willing to comply with current rules, customs, norms, and expectations), responsibility (cooperative and dependable), and virtue (follows rules of good or moral behaviors to act as a moral exemplar) (Roberts, Chernyshenko, Stark, & Goldberg, 2005). Accordingly, students with high conscientiousness should achieve good academic performance because they are able to develop an organized study plan, acquire the resources needed to make it work, and carry it out in a responsible way. However, even in the case of conscientiousness as a predictor, there have been some notable “failures to replicate.” For example, both Paunonen (1998) and Farsides and Woodfield (2003) found that conscientiousness did not correlate with students’ GPA in their study samples. And though most studies have shown that conscientiousness makes a unique contribution to the prediction of university GPA after first controlling for previous academic performance, (e.g., Conard, 2006, Noftle and Robins, 2007 and Wolfe and Johnson, 1995), some exceptions to this finding also exist (Farsides and Woodfield, 2003 and Noftle and Robins, 2007). Although there are only a few of these exceptions, they raise the important question of why conscientiousness is not always a significant unique predictor in large-sample studies of university GPA. We propose a possible answer to that question: that if conscientiousness interacts with other variables in the prediction model in a mutually compensatory way, conscientiousness may fail to emerge as a significant “main effect” predictor, but still contribute as one of the variables in a significant “interaction term” instead. For example, not all students who achieve high grades in class are conscientious (i.e., well-organized and detail-oriented). Sometimes, low conscientious students can also achieve good grades if they have other compensatory characteristics, such as a high level of motivation to persist in achieving their goals. Thus, some students with high motivation may work exceptionally hard and achieve academic success despite a lack of organizational skills and a focus on details. It is therefore reasonable to hypothesize that some of the variability in the effect sizes of conscientiousness may be attributable to the effects of a mutually compensatory predictor with which conscientiousness interacts.1 In the present study, we tested for mutual compensation of the type just proposed. Specifically, we tested for a significant interaction between conscientiousness and self-motivation, with the expectation that self-motivation might interact with conscientiousness in a mutually compensatory way to predict university-level academic performance. If this relationship can be documented, it may help to explain why conscientiousness does not always significantly predict students’ academic performance, and why (and how) other personality traits may play compensatory roles. Self-motivation concerns the strength of one’s tendency to set goals and to persist in working to attain them (Dishman and Ickes, 1981 and Dishman et al., 1980). Hosek (1997) stated that self-motivation is relevant to the capacity for self-reinforcement and the ability to delay gratification. Therefore, individuals with high self-motivation should set goals for themselves and consistently strive to achieve them. As a personality construct, self-motivation helps to answer the question of why some people work so hard and persistently to achieve personal goals whereas other people do not. Dishman et al. (1980) developed a reliable self-report measure of self-motivation that has been validated in several applied contexts in which sustained effort, self-discipline, and perseverance are important. For example, the self-motivation measure has successfully predicted participation in adult exercise programs and endurance sport training (Dishman et al., 1980). It has also been associated with successful treatment outcomes in a smoking cessation program (Joseph, Grimshaw, Amjad, & Stanton, 2005), and with the degree of physical activity in youth (Biddle et al., 1996). Thus, we predicted that because students with higher self-motivation scores would work harder and persist in the face of obstacles to achieve their educational goals, they would achieve higher university GPAs than students with lower self-motivation scores, even when their level of conscientiousness (organization and attention to detail) is low. That is, we expected that a high level of self-motivation could compensate for a low level of conscientiousness. On the other hand, we expected that a high level of conscientiousness would compensate for a low level of self-motivation, because students who organize their activities well and pay a lot of attention to detail should succeed in their studies even when a high level of self-motivation is lacking.

The descriptive statistics for the continuous variables and percentage breakdowns for the discrete variables (sex and high school rank) are reported in Table 1. Table 1. Means and standard deviation or percentage of variables: GPA, conscientiousness, self-motivation, sex, and high school rank. Variable Mean SD Range N Percent GPA 2.81 .74 0.00–4.00 377 Conscientiousness 32.54 5.29 16–45 377 Self-motivation 142.27 21.04 78–194 377 Sex Male 107 28.4 Female 270 71.6 High school rank First Quarter 231 61.3 Second Quarter 72 19.1 Third Quarter 14 3.7 Fourth Quarter 33 8.8 Missing Data 27 7.1 T