The role of personality in the selection of a major: With and without vocational self-efficacy and interests

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of personality traits measured by the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen, 2000 and Tellegen and Waller, 2008) in selecting educational majors. Personality traits were examined alone, and with the combination of Holland’s hexagonal confidence domains, as measured by the general confidence themes (GCT) of the Skills Confidence Inventory (SCI; Betz, Borgen, & Harmon, 2005), and Holland’s interest domains, as measured by the general occupational themes (GOTs) of the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory (SII; Donnay, Morris, Schaubhut, & Thompson, 2005). Personality traits significantly contributed to the discrimination of nine educational major families in a sample of 368 undergraduate decided students. When the set of confidence and interest scales was added to the personality traits, the conservative jack knife hit rate was almost doubled.