Personality, achievement test scores, and high school percentile as predictors of academic performance across four years of coursework

This research examined the role of three Big Five-related personality traits (Prudence, Sociability, and Ambition) as unique predictors of academic performance. Two successive undergraduate classes (entering in 1998 and 1999) completed personality inventories upon entering college. The authors obtained grade point averages (GPA’s) for all students in the Spring of 2003. Two of the traits, Prudence and Sociability, contributed unique variance to GPA when the effects of high school percentile rank and achievement test scores were controlled for both classes. There was a decline in incremental validity for these two personality traits as predictors of GPA later in student tenure. Ambition was unrelated to academic performance for both classes.