Personality is related to educational outcomes in late adolescence: Evidence from two large-scale achievement studies

•We investigated the relation between personality and academic outcomes.•We demonstrated the generalizability of the results across two independent samples.•The five-factor structure of personality was found in both samples.•Conscientiousness was closely related to grades.•Openness showed high relations with achievement test scores.

As no previous research has assessed personality in a large-scale study of student achievement, this study is the first to investigate the relation between personality traits and academic outcomes in adolescence. We used data from two independent Luxembourgish samples of students including a representative sample of 15-year-old students (n = 898) and a large heterogeneous sample of more than 2,000 ninth and tenth graders. We found a differentiated pattern of results concerning key educational outcomes: Conscientiousness was more closely related to grades, whereas Openness showed higher relations with achievement test scores. Possible mechanisms that may underlie the pathways from personality to educational success and the implications of using short inventories in the context of large-scale (educational) studies are discussed.