Moderating effect of self-determination in the relationship between Big Five personality and academic performance

a r t i c l e i n f o Previous studies have shown that both personality and motivation are important factors in student academic performance. This study examined how the interactions between the Big Five personality traits and self-determination motivation orientations affect students' academic performance. The hypotheses were empirically tested using cross-sectional data collected from 249 primary school students in China. The correlation analysis found that self-determined motivation and four of the five personality traits (not emotional instability) were significantly positively related to academic performance in English. The hierarchical regression analysis revealed that, after controlling for gender, openness to new experience and conscientiousness both positively predicted English performance. Significant interaction effects were found between agreeableness and self-determined motivation, and between conscientiousness and self-determined motivation. However, conscientiousness and agreeableness only positively predicted academic performance when the student's self-determined motivation was low. Research on motivation and its relationship to academic performance is as vibrant and influential as ever. As a key determinant of academic performance, academic motivation has consistently been shown to make a positive contribution to academic achievement (Richardson, Abraham, & Bond, 2012). Recently, researchers have focused on the effect of other non-cognitive constructs, such as personality traits, on academic performance (Zuffianò et al., 2013), as previous studies have shown that learners' motivation, skills, and abilities do not fully explain student achievement. This study investigated whether variation in students' personality traits could be used to explain differences in academic achievement and how these personality traits interacted with motivational constructs. 2. Personality and academic performance Personality is defined as " an individual's characteristics patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms – hidden or not – behind those patterns " (Funder, 1997, p. 2). This definition describes the motivational control that influences a person's behavior (Barrick, Mount, & Li, 2013). For example, Deci and Ryan (1985) posited that students who were intrinsically motivated to learn displayed different personality traits, such as intellectual curiosity and the tendency for disengagement, than students who were extrinsi-cally motivated to learn. This suggests that personality traits could be a promising predictor of academic outcomes. The Big Five model broadly classifies human personalities into five major traits: extraversion (sociable, active), openness (imaginative, intellectual), conscientiousness (persistent, dependable), emotional instability (anxious, unconfident), and agreeableness (cooperative, friendly) (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Each of these traits has been examined in terms of its relationship to academic achievement. …