Educational orientation, NEO PI-R personality traits, and plans for graduate school

College Student Journal, Dec, 2003 by James A. Scepansky, Christopher A. Bjornsen

Measures

Participants completed a questionnaire packet that assessed several aspects of personality, attitudes towards education, and the expression of emotions in the family and in peer relationships. We discuss only measures relevant to the current investigation.

The LOGO-II (Eison, Pollio, & Milton, 1982) is a 32-item inventory that assesses students' attitudes and behaviors regarding their education. Specifically, the LOGO-II distinguishes between students who endorse a Learning Orientation (e.g., "I enjoy classes in which the instructor attempts to relate material to concerns beyond the classroom") versus a Grade-Orientation (e.g., "I cut classes when confident that lecture material will not be on the exam"). Participants rated all items on a 5-point, Likert-type rating scale anchored by 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). In this investigation, we obtained scores for Learning Oriented Attitudes, Learning-Oriented Behaviors, Grade-Oriented Attitudes and Grade-Oriented Behaviors, as well as the overall Learning- and Grade-Orientation scores. Reliability coefficients ranged from .49 (Learning-Oriented Attitudes) to .75 (Learning-Oriented Behaviors), and all coefficients were remarkably consistent with coefficients obtained in previous research (see Eison & Pollio, 1990).

The 240-item NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) is one of the most widely used inventories for the assessment of "fundamental", non-clinical personality traits. It measures five domains of personality that correspond to the "Big Five" theory of personality. These domains, or major dimensions, are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Each domain is comprised of six underlying facets, or defining traits. For example, Conscientiousness includes the facets Competence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement Striving, Self-Discipline, and Deliberation. The psychometric properties of the NEO PI-R are well documented (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992; Piedmont, 1998).

Participants also provided demographic information, as well as answers to the following questions: "How many hours per week on average do you spend studying or working on schoolwork?" "What do you expect to do after graduation? (graduate school versus work)" "On average, how often do you participate in class by asking a question or taking part in a class discussion?" Students responded to the latter item using the following 5-point scale: 5 = always, 4 = often, 3 = sometimes, 2 = rarely, 1 = never.

Procedure

Data were collected during two separate class sessions within one semester. Participants completed the LOGO-II during the first four weeks and the NEO PI-R during the end of that same academic term. We embedded each of these measures among several other inventories that are not relevant here, as well as numerous demographic items.

Results

Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was conducted assessing the effects of future plans (graduate school vs. workforce) on 12 measures we believe to be related to student engagement in learning. The majority of correlations between measures were significant (See Table 1). Year in school was entered as a covariate to determine whether academic rank mediated the effects of future plans on the 12 measures of engagement. Year in school did have a significant effect, F(12, 313) = 3.34, p < .01. However, after accounting for the effects of year in school, the multivariate effects of future plans remained significant, F(12, 313) = 2.85, p < .01. Uni-variate tests show that students planning to attend graduate school participated more in class, and scored significantly higher on Learning-Oriented Attitudes, Learning-Oriented Behaviors, Conscientiousness, Competence, Achievement Striving, Openness and Ideas; they also scored significantly lower on Grade-Oriented Attitudes and Grade-Oriented Behaviors (See Table 2). Finally, the difference between the groups in terms of GPA and School Work approached significance (both p's < .10).