Psychology Assignment: Questionnaire on Personality and Achievement

This psychology assignment presents a questionnaire designed to assess the relationship between personality traits and academic achievement among second-year psychology students. The questionnaire, based on the five-factor model (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeablenes...Read More

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

1PSYCHOLOGY
15 item scale Strongly
Disagree
Disagree Neither
agree and
disagree
Agre
e
Strongly
agree
Factor 1: (agreeableness)
I think the professors mark us
accordingly with the strength and
weaknesses of the paper.
I believe marks are direct reflection
of our efforts put into a test.
I would accept the tutor’s feedback
Factor 2: (conscientiousness)
I would work harder
I would try harder to get good scores
I would try different ways to study
Factor 3: (emotional stability)
I would do my best to stop taking
negative thoughts
I would not be easily disappointed
I will stretch my hard work beyond
stress and anxiety
Factor 4: (neuroticism)
I would not be panicking easily

2PSYCHOLOGY
I would not get depressed
I would not feel like everything was
ruined and was going wrong
Factor 5: (openness)
I will be more open minded and learn
as much as I can
I would like to self –monitor my
strengths and weaknesses to enhance
my academic performance
I will self-impose rewards and
punishments to improve my
academic and learning performance
Total score – 75 Max per trait score – 15 Questions / trait - 3
Scores per Response - Strongly disagree (1)
Disagree (2)
Neither agree nor disagree (3)
Agree (4)
Strongly agree (5)
Interpretation – Higher the score, more is openness, agreeableness, contentiousness,
emotional stability and lesser the neuroticism – indicates a higher opportunity of
better academic achievement in the university examinations.

3PSYCHOLOGY
Part 2: Narrative analysis
The questionnaire formulated attempts to draw a relationship between the personality
traits of a second year psychology students and their academic achievements. The 5 factor
model has been used to determine the theme of the questions given the above questionnaire.
As supported by many other research studies, that 5 factor model provide the most pertinent
trait parameters to mark a student regarding an academic behavior and in understanding of
the same behavior underpinning the specific personality types in order to anticipate an
academic outcome or achievement (Nielsen, Glasø & Einarsen 2017). The five personality
traits – openness, agreeableness, contentiousness, emotional stability and neuroticism has
been considered cardinally while formulating the questions in the above psychology
questionnaire (Stajkovic et al. 2018). A standard Likert scale of 5 has been used in the
response section where the questions are be answered as – strongly disagree, disagree, neither
agree or disagree to agree and strongly agree. The questionnaire uses a 15 item scale with a
total score of 75. As for interpretation, higher the score – more are the chances or rather the
opportunities for a better academic performance (Rimfeld, Kovas, Dale & Plomin 2016).
I self-administered the psychology questionnaire and found out my score.
15 item
scale
Stron
gly Disagree
Disag
ree
Neit
her agree
and
disagree
Ag
ree
Stron
gly agree
Factor 1:
(agreeableness)
I think
the professors
Tick

4PSYCHOLOGY
mark us
accordingly
with the
strength and
weaknesses of
the paper.
I believe
marks are direct
reflection of our
efforts put into a
test.
Tick
I would
accept the
tutor’s feedback
Tic
k
Factor 2:
(conscientiousn
ess)
I would
work harder
Tic
k
I would
try harder to get
good scores
Tick

5PSYCHOLOGY
I would
try different
ways to study
Tick
Factor 3:
(emotional
stability)
I would
do my best to
stop taking
negative
thoughts
Tick
I would
not be easily
disappointed
Tick
I will
stretch my hard
work beyond
stress and
anxiety
Tick
Factor 4:
(neuroticism)
I would
not be panicking
Tic
k

6PSYCHOLOGY
easily
I would
not get
depressed
Tick
I would
not feel like
everything was
ruined and was
going wrong
Tick
Factor 5:
(openness)
I will be
more open
minded and
learn as much as
I can
Tick
I would
like to self –
monitor my
strengths and
weaknesses to
Tick

7PSYCHOLOGY
enhance my
academic
performance
I will
self-impose
rewards and
punishments to
improve my
academic and
learning
performance
Tick
My score – 66
In analysis of the results, I scored low on areas like
agreeableness which I need to shape as an important personality trait. Although, I find it a
fact that marks and evaluation cannot completely reflect on a person’s intelligence or
achievement abilities but as far as exams are concerned, I do not comply with the evaluation
process and the marking system and hence, this has hampered my overall score but as my
personality traits are not very neurotic, it has improved my overall score. It has to be noted
very carefully, that for the ease of the understanding and analysis simplification – negative
questions has been used in neuroticism, thus indicating more the subject agrees with the
questions, his neuroticism traits gets ldemic ower but his questionnaire scores gets better.
Neuroticism is the only score amongst the other five that can be considered inversely related
to academic achievement and hence, this pattern has been in the questionnaire.

8PSYCHOLOGY
Personality play a very critical role in planning,
strategizing and implementation of an academic behavior (Giluk & Postlethwaite 2015). A
well planned academic behavior can cause more achievement and related success in the
academic field while a distorted and negative array of thoughts can shape a personality in a
very adverse way and the student studying in second year of college, where the study
pressure is relatively higher than the studies in first year and so is the pressure of achievement
(Vedel 2016). Hence, in such a scenario, this 15 item scale can be used to rate one’s readiness
to an examination and to understand the areas of personality (as in the big five traits) that
needs work and transformation (Carvalho 2016). Gender of the student also play a critical
role in transformation of the traits with regards to academic achievement.
References
Carvalho, R. G. G. (2016). Gender differences in academic achievement: The mediating role
of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 94, 54-58.
doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.12.011

9PSYCHOLOGY
Giluk, T. L., & Postlethwaite, B. E. (2015). Big Five personality and academic dishonesty: A
meta-analytic review. Personality and Individual Differences, 72, 59-67.
doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.08.027
Nielsen, M. B., Glasø, L., & Einarsen, S. (2017). Exposure to workplace harassment and the
Five Factor Model of personality: A meta-analysis. Personality and individual
differences, 104, 195-206. doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.08.015
Rimfeld, K., Kovas, Y., Dale, P. S., & Plomin, R. (2016). True grit and genetics: Predicting
academic achievement from personality. Journal of personality and social
psychology, 111(5), 780. dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000089
Stajkovic, A. D., Bandura, A., Locke, E. A., Lee, D., & Sergent, K. (2018). Test of three
conceptual models of influence of the big five personality traits and self-efficacy on
academic performance: A meta-analytic path-analysis. Personality and Individual
Differences, 120, 238-245. 10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.014
Vedel, A. (2016). Big Five personality group differences across academic majors: A
systematic review. Personality and individual differences, 92, 1-10.
doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.12.011