A functional look at goal orientations: Their role for self-estimates of intelligence and performance

Personality and Intelligence Interact in the Prediction of Academic Achievement

Personality predicts academic achievement above and beyond intelligence. However, studies investigating the possible interaction effects between personality and intelligence when predicting academic achievement are scarce, as is the separate investigation of broad personality factors versus narrow personality facets in this context. Two studies with 11th grade students (Study 1: N = 421; Study 2: N = 243) were conducted to close this research gap. The students completed the Intelligence-Structure-Test 2000 R measuring general reasoning ability, and a well-established personality inventory based on the Five Factor Model. Academic achievement was operationalized via Grade Point Average. Using hierarchical regression and moderation analyses, Study 1 revealed that Conscientiousness interacted with intelligence when predicting academic achievement: there was a stronger association between intelligence and academic achievement when students scored higher on the Conscientiousness scale. Study 2 confirmed the findings from Study 1 and also found a moderation effect of Neuroticism (stronger association between intelligence and academic achievement with lower values on the Neuroticism scale). Analyses at the facet level revealed much more differentiated results than did analyses at the domain level, suggesting that investigating personality facets should be preferred over investigating personality domains when predicting academic achievement.

I believe I'm good at orienting myself… But is that true?

The present study aimed to analyse beliefs that men and women have with respect to their sense of direction (SOD) and whether they correlate with spatial environmental task performance. Eighty-four students filled in the short version of the Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style Scale to evaluate beliefs on their SOD, knowledge of the city (TK), spatial ability (SA) and wayfinding (WA) and performed three spatial environmental tasks. Results showed that gender did not predict the performance on the spatial environmental tasks, whereas it can be predicted by participants' beliefs related to their SOD and TK. The findings point out the need to identify specific training aimed at improving women's metacognitive skills in order to delete or reduce gender differences in SA.