Comparative Analysis On Personality Traits And Motivation .
International Journal of Humanities and Management Sciences (IJHMS) Volume 3, Issue 4 (2015) ISSN 2320–4044 (Online)Comparative Analysis on Personality Traits andMotivation on International Students‟sAcademic Performance in Universities inTaiwanJanell Roshea Dawson, Cheng-Ping Shih, Ph.D. learning environments that is coherent with their ownpersonality type preference. Many scholars have accepted thefive-factor model of personality as a replicable and unifyingtaxonomy of personality (Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1992) andhave found personality traits to be significantly related tosuccessful job and school performance, both logically andstatistically (Hogan & Hogan, 1989). Many researches aboutmotivation have concluded that it is related to many outcomessuch as curiosity, persistence, learning and performance (Deci& Ryan, 1985). There are several conceptual perspective haveproposed that in order to better understand motivation, it canbe divided into categories: intrinsic, extrinsic and amotivation(Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991)Abstract—To what extent does personality traits of the Big FivePersonality Traits and Motivation predict academic performance forinternational students in Taiwan in Universities was investigated in aquantitative study. Academic performance was assessed at via Test ofChinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) in the reading and listeningsection. The dimensions of the Big Five Personality Traits using itsten aspects traits were examined as an indicator of academicperformance followed by the indicators of motivation using theacademic motivation scale to also test academic performance.Secondly, an assessment will be done to determine which of thefacets traits of the Big Five Personality Traits and motivation have asignificant correlation in predicting in academic performance amongstudents. The instrumentation is derived from the Big Five Aspectsof Personality and that categorize each of the Big Five into twoaspects. To test motivation, a 28- item questionnaire adapted from theAcademic Motivation Scale.Purpose Of StudyNevertheless, there is a lack of accessible researchaddressing the role of motivation and personality as a predictorof achievement in universities in Taiwan among internationalstudents. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to examineand assess the impact of personality type and motivation on theacademic performance of international students enrolled at theundergraduate and graduate level using the Big Five AspectScale (BFAS) and Academic Motivation Scale. Hence theimportance of this study, which will examine and comparewhether and to what extent the ten aspects of the Big FivePersonality Trait Theory and Motivation can predict academicperformance among international university students.1. Determine the personality traits that significantlycorrelates and predicts academic performance2. Determine whether motivation plays a significant role inpredicting academic performance.3. To close research gaps where Taiwan is concern, and tooffer both academic and practitioners additional insight ineducational issues such as admissions to college orgraduate programs.Keywords—Personality Traits, Motivation on InternationalStudents‟s Academic Performance in Universities in Taiwan.I. INTRODUCTIONHE Big Five Personality dynamics and motivation are twoof the most commonly used instruments in predictingperformance. The majority of the studies based on bothBig Five Personality Traits and motivation address the issueof predicting job performance, while some of the studies areengrossed on more specific situations, such as academicperformance or training performance (Trapmann, Hell, Hirn &Schuler, 2007; Vansteenkiste et al. 2005).Students contrast in their personal values, as not all studentsare the same. They obtain and process information differently;their personality trait is different and hence, also theirunderstanding and/or the way they perceive information. It isoften deliberated that a combination of personality types isnecessary for people to be successful in their career.Educators, researchers, and psychologists have been constantlysearching for a set of variables that predicts outlines ofstudents‟ behaviors and their relationship to academicachievement. Students enrolled in college tend to preferTQuestion of StudyBased on the intentions to evaluate the impact of personalitytraits on academic performance in Taiwan‟s university amonginternational students, this research purposes to answer thefollowing questions:1. Do the Big Five and motivation dimensions have asignificant effect on international students‟ academicJanell Roshea Dawson, Cheng-Ping Shih, Ph.D. , are with GraduateInstitute of International Human Development, National Taiwan NormalUniversity, 162, Section 1, Heping E. Road, Taipei 10610, Taiwan, R.O.C,Email id: janellrdawson@gmail.com and Cpshih49@hotmail.com209
International Journal of Humanities and Management Sciences (IJHMS) Volume 3, Issue 4 (2015) ISSN 2320–4044 (Online)2.3.4.5.have an idea of what it means to be considered an introvert;scientifically, that is, those who score low on the extroversionscale. Low scorers tend to lack the exuberance, energy, andactivity levels of extroverts.The 6 sub-facet traits on the Extroversion (E) scale in theNEO Personality Inventory are Warmth, Gregariousness,Assertiveness, Activity, Excitement-Seeking, and PositiveEmotions. Observing these as examples of the five-factor subfacet structure, it is relatively easy to see and understand howthe structure works to present a comprehensive picture ofpersonality. Each of these sub-facets has its unique definitionbut they exist under the umbrella of Extroversion, each addingmore detail to the overall concept.performance in the TOCFL exam enrolled in universitiesin Taiwan?Do the aspects of personalities have an effect onAcademic performance?Do the dimensions of motivation have an effect ofacademic performance?What aspect of the Big 5 Personality traits has a positiveeffect on students‟ academic performance?What dimensions of motivation has a positive effect onstudents‟ academic performanceII. DETAILS OF THE BIG FIVEThe Five-Factor Model of personality trait theory presents5 major personality constructs, within each of which aregrouped several secondary/minor/sub-facet traits. The fivemajor traits hereafter referred to in this research follow theOCEAN acronym derived from five-factor theory which usesOpenness (O), Conscientiousness (C), Extraversion (E),Agreeableness (A), and Neuroticism (N); there has alwaysbeen terminology ambiguity concerning the naming of thetraits, but as previously mentioned, there is certainly generalconsensus in terms of what is being measured/observed in eachtrait. The FFM includes a number of propositions about thenature and developmental course of each of the majorpersonality traits, as well as about the relation of these traits totheir respective sub-facets and to the behavioral outcomesassociated with each.The work of Costa & McCrae is considered invaluable tothis particular point in five-factor theory, because their originalnaming of the major and sub traits is most popularly used as abasis for further investigation. For example, the table below isbased on the use of Costa & McCrae‟s NEO PersonalityInventory test as a measure of the big five traits. The table is asummarization of the big five traits, the names and definitionsof their respective sub-facet traits, and profile adjectivesdescribing what high and low scoring means within each trait.Following this summary table, a detailed examination of theBig Five is given.AgreeablenessThe Agreeableness (A) scale trait is primarily meant tomeasure interpersonal tendencies; that is, how compatible aperson is with others, or, more importantly, how interested aperson is in getting along with others. The highly agreeableindividual is fundamentally concerned with cooperation,altruism, and social harmony – a „people person‟. Goldbergused the lexical approach to define Agreeableness as a majortrait domain from the occurrence of personality words similarto the construct in language and in other previous work(Goldberg, 1994). The personality words used as sub-facetterms under Agreeableness illustrate the good-naturedfriendliness of the high scoring end of this trait easily andperfectly: Trust (in others) – Agreeable people are optimisticabout people and their intentions. They believepeople are basically decent and so they trust easily. Compliance – Because they are interested in socialharmony, Agreeable people are more likely tocompromise and/or avoid confrontations in order toget along. Sympathy – Also referred to as Tender Mindedness, itrefers to an ability to be compassionate andempathetic. ConscientiousnessConscientiousness relates to a person‟s level of attention.In the English language the basic dictionary term has itsmeaning derived from the conscience and this is reflected inthe definitions measured within the sub-facets of the domain.Some of the sub-facets seem more aligned with the moralconnotation of the term „conscientious‟ and some align withthe ideas of meticulousness and carefulness that relate to theconscience. Either way, Conscientiousness is associated withself-control – this is reflected in the fact that the term used forlow-scorers on the scale is Impulsive. The opposite of aConscientious individual in personality theory is an Impulsiveindividual.The NEO PI-R sub-facets of Conscientiousness areCompetence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement-Striving, SelfDiscipline, and Deliberation. Conscientiousness gets a lot ofattention in terms of how it can benefit individuals in society.Obviously, high scoring in these constructs can be perceivedas desirable character traits, especially in a work environment.High scoring in Competence, Self-Discipline and DeliberationExtroversionAs one of the first traits to be highlighted as significantacross the research, extroversion has perhaps always appearedin factor-analytic models, and is one of the traits to appeareven in non five-factor models, such as Eysenck's PEN model.The term is incredibly recognizable - and possibly overused tothe point of misnomer – even outside the realm of traitpsychology. At its simplest, the term implies an “energeticapproach to the social and material world” (Popkins, 2010)and high scorers in extroversion are described as havingpersonality traits such as sociability, high activity,assertiveness, and positive emotionality. It has been referred toas social adaptability, though the popularity of this term seemsto be waning (Zuckerman, 1971). This emphasis on comfort insocial interaction and the external is what is possibly mostdistinctive about persons who can be considered extroverts.It is important to discuss traits associated with bothextremes of each major trait spectrum. Again, because of thewide understanding of the term extrovert, most laymen will210
International Journal of Humanities and Management Sciences (IJHMS) Volume 3, Issue 4 (2015) ISSN 2320–4044 (Online)Subsequently, Eysenck (1967) proposed just two personalitytraits, extraversion and neuroticism, before further researchexpanded to three and eventually five.Though conscientiousness and agreeableness may beassociated to higher cognitive functions of inhibition andexecutive control extraversion and neuroticism are moreassociated with the older, “system 1” regions. Many studieshave found that neuroticism is related to the “Amygdala,”which is considered to be an old, primal area of the brain thatis accountable for sensing emotions, specifically fear.Gray (1970) proposed that there are two independentregions in the brain: the Behavioral Activation System (BAS)and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). The BAS,theorized as extraversion, which concerns a person‟ssensitivity to reward and their probability of approachingdesirable stimuli, whereas the BIS (neuroticism) looks atsensitivity to punishment and evading aversive stimuli. Aperson can be high in both: a neurotic extravert would bedelicate to both positive and negative emotions. It is for thisreason that researchers have used measurements of BAS/BISto determine when a bipolar patient is due to undergo a manicor depressive episode.Personal achievement further falls under the wheels ofneuroticism. For example, the trait is consistently related topoor job performance due to its associations with low selfconfidence and high anxiety, hostility and vulnerability. Somestudies even suggest that emotional stability is as important forjob success as conscientiousness (Kendler, Kuhn & Prescott,2004).Additionally, it is an important intercessor of exam success,because neurotics tend to feel a lot more stress and anxietyunder exam conditions, which disturbs their performance. Thisis said to occur because neurotic people are very sensitive tointernal and external negative stimuli, which escalates “mentalnoise” and makes it hard to pay attention to the task at hand(Halamandaris & Power, 1999).is a reflection of abilities to think things through, plan for thefuture, and be careful in terms of one‟s actions. High Orderaccounts for the neatness and thoroughness associated withConscientious persons. Achievement-striving as a facet issomewhat self-explanatory, as it measures exactly that – thedegree to which the individual values success and is willing towork towards it. The extreme high end of these traits cancombine into a workaholic, perfectionist type nature, orperhaps be considered boring or even be associated with typesof compulsive disordersOpennessOpenness, also known as openness to experience orintellect, is held as a broad dimension of individualexperiences, that includes both structural and motivationalaspects: “Openness is seen as breadth, depth and permeabilityof consciousness, and in the recurrent need to enlarge andexamine experience (McCrae & Costa, 1992). The structuralaspect of openness recalls Rokeach‟s (1960) classicconception of dogmatism in terms of labeled beliefs, and alsoHartmann‟s (1991) description of thick and thin boundaries inthe mind. The motivational side of openness suggests links toMurray‟s (1938) needs for understanding, change, andsentience as well as Zuckerman‟s (1979) Experience Seeking.The sub facets that individuals possess with high opennesstraits tend to be liberal, creative, curious and aestheticallyminded and fantastical. They are also characterized as beingmore willing to have interest novel ideas and interests andexperience positive and negative emotions more deeply. Incontrast, low scorers tend to behave more conservatively, holdmore conformist values, and experience a thinner range ofaffect than high scorers (Jonassaint et al., 2010)Unlike Neuroticism and Extraversion, Openness appears tobe abstractly directly related to intelligence, rather than merelyaffect test performance (psychometric intelligence).Conversely, other researchers have favored to refer toOpenness as Intellect or Culture, deciphering this personalitytrait in terms of introspective reflection and intellectualknowledge (Goldberg, 1994; Johnson, 1994; Saucier, 1994).Openness is consequently linked with intellectual curiosity,vivid imagination, and behavioral flexibility (McCrae & Costa,1997), but also with understanding ability, knowledge inscience, change and autonomy (Ashton, Lee, Vernon, & Jang,2000).Big Five Aspect of PersonalityPersonality trait dimensions can be categorized or groupedby organizing them into hierarchies, based on their intercorrelations. Broad domains such as those of the Big Five(Extraversion, Conscientiousness, etc.) each incorporatingmany linked traits, are located near the top of the hierarchy,and very specific patterns of behavior and experience (e.g.being sociable) are located near the bottom. The establishmentof these hierarchies has been one of the main concerns ofphysiologists for close to a century. The Big Five Aspect ofPersonality, developed by DeYoung, Quilty, and Peterson(2007) is a theory that additionally develops the Big FivePersonality Traits by categorizing each of the five dimensionsinto to two “aspects”. The aspects represent a level ofprecision between the Big Five Personality Traits and theRevised NEO Personality Inventory „s facets.A study conducted in large Canadian and German samplesshowed that there are two genetic factors that are responsiblefor the shared variance of the six facet scales that makes up theBig Five in the NEO-PI- (Jang, et al., 2002). Therefore, eachof the Big Five domains happens to be theoretically dividableinto two subdomains with distinct biological sources. ThisNeuroticismOf all the traits within the Big Five Personality Trait,neuroticism is the trait that is considered to be “negative” or“bad.” Personality researchers habitually reverse it and refer toit as “emotional stability.” Stable people are calm underpressure while neurotic people tend to be anxious, pessimistic,stressed, upset, fearful, and emotionally unstable (Hough et al.,1990).Neuroticism has a very strong biological basis; the two mostfundamental traits are neuroticism and extraversion. They dateall the way back to Ancient Greece, where Hippocrates (460370 BC), a Greek physician labeled people as belonging toone of four personality types depending on how calm/excitableand morose/sanguine they were.211
International Journal of Humanities and Management Sciences (IJHMS) Volume 3, Issue 4 (2015) ISSN 2320–4044 (Online)finding is sufficient enough to motivate research into anintermediate level of personality structure.traditional predictors of these outcomes, such as controllingfor SAT scores when examining college GPA.As mentioned, according to the existing literature, thedeeper level of trait facets seem to be even more stronglyrelated to academic outcomes than just the Big Five.Paunonen, and Ashton, (2001) studied two of the Big 5factors - Conscientiousness and Openness - along with 2 oftheir constituent narrow personality traits - Need forAchievement and Need for Understanding - to predict finalgrades in an undergraduate psychology course and foundexactly that the lower level traits were stronger predictors ofgrade outcomes. In this case, the researchers even concludedthat broad factor measures may be counterproductive inbehavior prediction and explanation, but there does not seemto be many others in the field who would concur with thisdegree of statement. Lounsbury, Welsh, Gibson, andSundstrom, (2005), for example, examined the relationshipsbetween all of the broad Big 5 traits and the narrowpersonality traits of Optimism and Work Drive in relation tocognitive ability in 375 high school students in Tennessee,USA (their research sampled middle school students as well)and found that Optimism – the narrow personality trait - andOpenness were the significant predictors in their high entiousness and Openness as the Big 5 traits mostclosely linked with academic outcomes.Fig 1. Between Facets and Domains: Ten Aspects of the Big FiveExisting Research on the Big Five and Academic SuccessThere is a pattern found to reveal strong relationshipsbetween specific Big Five traits and positive academicperformance and the patterns associating the sub-facet levelmore strongly with the academic outcomes than the morebroad meta-traits. In reviewing the existing literature perhapsmost interesting and, in the end, most compelling towards theneed for execution of similar work in Taiwan, was the patternsfound in the geographical replication of the findings. It is thisrepetition of findings in different nations that are compelling tothe idea that similar findings can be expected from thisresearch among international students in Taiwan.The literature presented reveals as its foundation therationality of using Big Five personality traits – to review,these are Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness,Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism - to predictacademic outcomes. One of many
Big Five Personality Traits and motivation address the issue of Personality Trait Theory and Motivation can predict academic predicting job performance, while some of the studies are engrossed on more specific situations, such as academic performance or training performance (Trapmann, He
Personality traits The module of Big-Five personality traits is built on a model which described the nature of individual differences as the human in five directions (McCrae& John, 1992). These five directions of Personality traits are gathered, summarize
personality traits and motivation in a learning process. In this research, ’Big Five’ was used as a personality model. The results showed that there is correlation between personality traits and motivation, but not all personality traits affect motivation in the same way and with the
to other personality disorders such as antisocial personality disorder. Ogloff (2005) distinguishes psychopathy from antisocial personality disorder due to the emphasis on affective and personality rather than mostly behavioral elements of antisocial personality disorder. Besides antisocial personality disorder, there are other DSM-IV personality
The Big Five personality traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These five factors are assumed to represent the basic structure behind all personality traits. They were defined and described by several different researchers during multiple periods of research. The Five Traits The traits are:
The study investigated the correlations between personality traits, flow-experience and several aspects of practice characteristics. Personality was represented by the three personality dimensions extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism, assessed by Eysenck's Personality Profiler as well as the trait form of the Positive and Negative
For psychologists at least, aggregate personality is the most con-veniently assessed of these three culture-level personality profiles. Standard measures of personality traits can be administered to a representative sample from each culture to be compared, and mean profiles can be computed. In one sense, this is precisely like compar-
Understanding The Supporter Personality Chapter 5: Understanding The Promoting/Supporter Personality Chapter 6: Understanding The Promoter/Controller Personality Chapter 7: Understanding The Controller/Analyzer Personality Chapter 8 : Understanding The Analyzer/Supporter Personality Chapter 9: Understanding The Centric Personality Wrapping Up
that is different from the usual pattern. Depending on the genetic influence on traits, the traits can be considered to be of three types: i. Monogenic traits (Mendelian). Traits that develop because of the influence of a single gene locus. ii. Polygenic traits (complex or common). Traits t
