Intelligence, Personality Traits and Vocational Interests as Predictors of School Achievement

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the extent to which intelligence, personality traits, and vocational interests are related to the general school achievement of elementary school children as well as to achievement in a specific group of school subjects (verbal-communicational, scientific, social-humanistic, technical and artistic group). Additionally, we also examined incremental validity of personality traits and vocational interests over and above the effects of intelligence. The research was carried out on 263 eight grade children (128 males and 135 females) from one elementary school. In order to investigate a predictive strength of intelligence, personality traits, and vocational interests in predicting general and school achievements in the specific group of school subjects, several hierarchical regression analysis were performed, in which personality traits were included in the first, intelligence in the second, and vocational interests in the third step of analysis. The results obtained show that verbal, numeric and abstract abilities, as well as conscientiousness and investigative interests, are strongest predictors of general school achievement and achievement in most specific groups of school subjects, explaining between 9% and 35% variance. Moreover, results show that personality traits over the effects of abilities and vocational interests over the effects of abilities and personality traits explain an additional proportion of variance of all criteria variables, except achievement in the technical group of subjects. Personality traits and vocational interests together explain about 11% variance of criteria (personality 5%; vocational interests 6%). The research results highlight the importance of intelligence, personality traits and vocational interests for understanding and predicting achievement in elementary school.