To Facebook or to Face Book? An investigation of how academic performance of different personalities is affected through the intervention of Facebook usage

This paper investigates how students' personality types influence their academic performance and how Facebook usage intervenes these associations. A survey questionnaire method was adopted to collect data from students in five public universities in Malaysia. An analysis of 1165 questionnaires shows that all five dimensions of personality from big five model predict academic performance. In addition, shyness also predicted academic performance positively while a negative relationship was found between loneliness and students' academic performance. The mediating role of Facebook usage was established only in the relationships of academic performance with extraversion, agreeableness and loneliness. A discussion of these findings, limitations of the study and future research directions are provided.