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Student Characteristics and Academic Performance in Higher Education: A Review Author(s): Susan A. Margrain Source: Research in Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1978), pp. 111-123Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40195141Accessed: 06-10-2015 04:50 UTC

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RESEARCH IN HIGHER EDUCATION Volume 8, pages 111-123 1978 APS Publications, Inc.

STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A Review

The Northern Ireland Polytechnic, Jordanstown Susan A. Margrain,

This is a review of the recent literature on student characteristics and their predictive potential for academic achievement. Results are not optimistic, often contradictory, and on the whole account for little variance beyond that accounted for by tests of intellectual ability. Researchers often use different performance criteria and so results are not com- parable. However, there has been much complex, diverse, and unique work done on personality and motivational factors but no clear trends have emerged. Other factors investigated have been home and class background, study habits, previous withdrawal, and expectations. The review concludes by demonstrating the usefulness of the cluster analysis approach which indicates groups of students with similar patterns of characteristic criteria.

Key words: background characteristics; introvert; study habits; cluster analysis

Attempts to construct a profile of the successful student over a wide range of background characteristics have proven largely disappointing. "In the prediction of student performances . . . efforts have produced rather unexciting conclusions" (Wilson, 1971). Entwistle, Entwistle, and Cowell (1971), using students from universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, found that although the correlation between Ad- vanced Level, General Certificate of Education (AL) and academic performance was .32, the addition of other characteristics only boosted the value by .06 and this is in agreement with American studies. Smithers (1972), using more sophisticated statistical methods, was able to account for 25% of the variation in student performance. Miller (1973) summarized research results: "Most have not been found to account for much variance not accounted for by tests of intellectual ability."

It is disquieting to find that these undramatic results can also be con-

Address reprint requests to Dr. Susan A. Margrain, Faculty of Social and Health Sci- ences, Ulster College, The Northern Ireland Polytechnic, Jordanstown, Northern Ireland.

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tradictory, e.g., Iliffe (1968) found that AL's showed a small significant positive correlation with performance but in general the level of correlation was low and even lower when the sexes were separated. Hamil- ton (1968) concluded that prior academic performance was unreliably correlated with achievement compared to nonscholastic variables. Yet Entwistle (1974) found that it was the best predictor.

Some confusion arises because different performance criteria have been used, e.g., in one case, degree class or mark, in another first year grades, while some researchers use less academic estimates of success, such as the withdrawal or dropout rate (Miller, 1970), or the student's own estimation of success (Mehryar, Hekmat, and Khajavi, 1975). Also the universal comparability of marks and fail rates is illusory - the range of marks used depending on subject, faculty, and institution.

Another factor in research comparisons in higher education is the variability associated with different student groups (these hold the key to more meaningful prediction of academic performance), e.g., Entwis- tle (1972) surveyed the differences between students from different institutions. While 68.5% of university students had 3 Cs at AL, only 8.4% of those at polytechnics (and there were only degree students in the sample), and 5.7% of those at colleges of education had. On a test of academic aptitude 44.2% of the university students were in the top two groups and 4% in the bottom. At colleges of education 10.5% were in the top groups and 23.5% in the bottom.

Nonscholastic differences were found between the three groups. Half of the polytechnic students lived at home while only 5% of students at other institutions did. Students at colleges were more extroverted than those at universities (see Hendry and Whiting, 1972). College of education students scored higher on social values, but lower on political values than university students. Compared with students in other sectors, polytechnic students scored higher on neuroticism and economic values, but lower on religious values.

Young apprentices at technical colleges were found to be more extroverted, authoritarian, and prejudiced than university students (Ven- ables, 1967). Warburton, reported by Hendry and Whiting (1972), found students in colleges of advanced technology less anxious than those at universities, but Entwistle (1972) reported that there were no consistent results for personality factors in students at technical colleges or colleges of education.

Differences between students seem to be greatest among those studying different subjects. Horn, Turner, and Davis (1975) found Social Science students were significantly more neurotic than engineers and they also tended to join radical political groups. Payne, Halpin, and El- lett (1973) found students in Drama and Social Science described them-


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selves as more independent, aggressive, and stubborn than students in music and Foreign Languages. The Social Science group were also more toughminded than the Art and Foreign Language group, and were more calculating and shrewd than all other groups. Math and Science groups were more reserved, detached and critical than any other student group. Academic talent was characterized by higher IQ, tough- mindedness, the experimenting approach, expediency, and stability. Conversely, the artistic student was tenderminded, conservative, tense, and less intelligent and conscientious. However, apart from these differences the personality profiles of artistically and academically gifted students were similar. Entwistle (1972) found the pattern of abilities, values, and attitudes of Science students was almost the mirror image of Arts students. Language students had high verbal ability, high esthetic values, radical social attitudes, and were emotionally unstable. They also had low economic, political, and theoretical values. The scientists were just the opposite. Applied scientists were neurotic and unstable, yet pure scientists were stable. Entwistle (1974) found scientists were more stable than Arts students. In a study by Higgins and Rossmann (1973) to determine the most preferred nominee students in a Liberal Arts College, faculty staff chose those that were "most like themselves - male, bright, high academic achievers, desiring to pursue graduate work." These students also tended to succeed, but there was a high percentage of overlap with the nonnominees on performance.

Hendry and Whiting (1972) found that Physical Education students were more extroverted and stable than other students, as well as more muscular, more authoritarian, and had driving aggressive social re- sponses of low insight, but had a high achievement drive.

The complexity and diversity of results on student characteristics associated with different institutions, subject groups, and research studies are reflected in studies on the relationships between characteristics and achievement.

Jones, Mackintosh, and McPherson (1972) found that school stand- ards were better predictors in science than nonscience subjects. Ent- wistle (1972) found that successful linguists had higher verbal aptitude than those who did less well. They were also more introverted and neurotic, but less ambitious. Social Science students who did well were emotionally stable and had low religious values. Among scientists, numerical aptitude was related to achievement as well as high theoretical and low aesthetic values. (However, as far as aptitude tests in general are concerned, Entwistle (1974) found their contribution beyond AL's was random.)

Ironically, Wantowski (1972) found that although scientists were neurotic introverts, the science department's losses were greatest


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among students who exhibited these characteristics. Brennan and Entwistle, reported by Entwistle (1972), found that suc-

cessful Science students were introverts, had only moderate AL's, but saw themselves as hardworking. Wilson, in the same publication, found extroversion related to failure in the Arts faculty. Furneux (Entwistle, 1972) found neurotic introverts made good engineers and linguists but stable introverts did better in the pure sciences and history. However, among the Social Science students the correlation between personality variables and attainment was almost zero. Entwistle (1972) found that although neuroticism correlated positively with success for engineers and linguists, it correlated negatively for scientists and Social Studies students. In different terms, Stringer (1972) found the more successful engineering student was authoritarian, rigid, lacking in creative interests, conservative, and neither impulsive or verbally aggressive.

Venables (1976) found a larger proportion of successful extroverts in the mechanical rather than electrical trades at technical colleges. Un- like Entwistle (1972), she found aptitude tests were helpful. The best predictive tests were a mathematical attainment test, a nonverbal IQ test, and the space perception test.

For first-year Psychology students, Banreti-Fuchs (1975) found that high achievers were conscientious about attending lectures, reading, and keeping up with the subject. Strangely, they regarded themselves as having poor physical health; they went to fewer parties and dances; they tended to be first-born children; they spent less time day dreaming; and they postponed marriage until the future. They reported that they preferred subjective rather than objective exams. Kline and Gale (Entwistle, 1972) found neither neuroticism nor introversion correlated with success in an introductory psychology course. Lin and McKeachie (1973) found sex differences, using the Achiever Personality Scale, Gough's Achievement via Independence Scale and study methods. They found their criteria made independent contributions beyond IQ to the prediction of course grades on an introductory psychology course for men, but not for women. They suggested that Fricke's Social Sci- ences Interest Scale would be useful in predicting success for women.

In Architecture, Stringer (1972) found that degree class related to organization and leadership, but that all students who got firsts were a distinct group: they were less authoritarian, less rigid, had greater creative interests, and were more feminine. However, failing students had half their scores in the opposite direction and half in the same direction. Thus, there was a "U"-shaped relationship between personality and degree. Stringer concluded that students should opt for studies linked with their personality. However, this would not have been useful advice for Architecture students.



Recently, Rowell and Renner (1975) found that for the postgraduate diploma in education, introverts were found to be more successful in structured courses and extroverts in unstructured courses.

On the whole the introvert seems to do better in higher education (Entwistle, 1972) while the stable extrovert does better at the school level. However, Wankowski and Cox (1973) reported that at the school level, higher grade General Certificates of Education were obtained by the less extroverted male. Lynn (Miller, 1970) found that good students were most often neurotic introverts. However, the relationship of stability-instability to good performance is controversial. Ryle (1969) reported that students who failed were highly neurotic and more introverted. Kelvin, Lucas, and Ojha, reported by Entwistle (1974), found that first class honors and failed students showed high neuroticism scores while students with high or low instability scores did worse than those with moderate scores. Correlations between introversion and achievement for polytechnic students were lower than for students from any other institution. The diversity of "all-over" views about the personality of the successful student reemphasizes the inappropriate- ness of this approach. However, the excellent study done by Wan- kowski and Cox (1973) at Birmingham does make generalizations. Es- sentially high neuroticism and extroversion combined to inhibit academic achievement and boost failure and withdrawal. The likelihood of stable introverts successfully completing a course was more than three times that for overall course population and six times greater than for the melancholies. However, there were differences between male and female populations. Among female students the stable extroverts gained high honors degrees, but for males it was the stable introvert who gained First Class Honors.

Wankowski and Cox (1973) also found that although the correlation between admission grades and degree was over .50 for stable introverts for both sexes, it disappeared to nonsignificance for students with other temperamental dispositions.

Interestingly they also found that on a teacher dependence scale, withdrawals scored highest and First Class Honors lowest. There was a negative correlation (r = -.50) between this score and degree among stable and introverted females and among males in the physical sciences (r = -.36), but this trend was not evident among students with intermediate degrees. The social transactions of tuition are complex and devious indeed.

Apart from personality factors, students' background characteristics have been used to predict performance. Ryle (1969) found that exces- sive parental pressure, a bad early relationship with parents or their di- vorce influenced the student to withdraw. Morris (1964) found a higher


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failure rate among those who felt their parents were keen on them com- ing to the university than among those who felt their parents were hos- tile or neutral. But Wankowski and Cox (1973) found this was not the case for the neurotic and introverted (melancholic and guilt prone). They flourished under " advice" from their elders. Miller (1970) found that unstable and discordant families tended to make the student less persistent, but financial problems made no difference. He found that birth, rank, and family size were also unimportant. However, being used to social interaction did help, This suggests that institutions of higher education should inquire about a student's parents' activities. Children from democratic homes tended to have inquiring minds while punitive, autocratic parents produced the opposite. Achievers came from families that were harmonious and stable, and where everyone had freedom of thought and communication.

A student's class background also appears to be of mixed importance for achievement. Smithers (1972) found that working class students did well at a technological university and Morris (1964) found the same at an ordinary university. He found that upper middle class students from public schools were as successful as grammar school pupils. Prediger, reported by Miller (1970), found that details of a student's background were of little use as predictors for students of low ability but they did help for students of high ability. Smithers and Dann (1974) found relationships between social class and degree among engineering and science students were low, but in languages the successful students came from nonmanual backgrounds. Among apprentices (Venables, 1976) achievement was associated with socially and educationally superior working class families, with the father most usually in a manual engineering job for which he had attended further education classes after school. The apprentice underachiever tended to have a father in a nonmanual managerial job. He would also have come from a grammar school, tended to be fat, and extroverted. The achieving apprentice tended to be anxious and introverted, the first or only child, and had a muscular physique. He also tended to be the employee of a large, rather than a small, firm. However, practical ability was independent of course success.

Dale and Miller (1972) compared the influence of an urban or rural background on academic performance. They found that urban Arts students from single-sex schools did better than their rural counterparts. Overall, the city students did better at first- year level and students from intermediate sized towns did less well than city or rural students.

Miller and Dale (1974) found similar results from students originating from single-sex or coeducational schools, but there were more first- year dropouts from single-sex schools.



Bluhm and Couch (1972) investigated the effect of previous withdrawal from higher education, i.e., the relative academic performance of various groups of readmitted students. The typical readmitted student was male, 24 years old, and unmarried. Upon their return, all readmitted students earned higher grades; however, females and upper class students performed even better. Interestingly, students who had withdrawn for reasbns of Church Mission or to be a housewife performed better than those who withdrew for reasons of employment or military service. The length of time a student was out of school made no difference in his academic performance.

The following are more unusual background characteristics that relate to success.

(1) There is a positive effect of previous experience with children for trainee teachers and a small advantage to being female (Waviott and Pollard, 1974); (2) Cohn (1972) found that for a course in economic statistics a greater background in economics was not a prerequisite for success and could be a handicap. However, a greater background in math was significantly related to success in this area. (3) Students with high mobility and high intelligence were more successful than low mobility students of high intelligence. High mobility students of low intelligence did less well than low mobility students with low intelligence. (Whalen and Fried, 1973); (4) Judging oneself as hardworking correlated with success at universities and polytechnics but not at colleges of education (Entwistle, 1972); (5) Sportsmen have been found to be as successful as nonparticipants, although they were more extroverted and stable (Hendry and Douglass, 1975); (6) Calhoun (1975) found that background and experiences were less important than initial goals and expectations in predicting performance on a Keller-type (1968) course (which is characterized by self-pacing, repeated examination, immedi- ate performance feedback, and optional lectures). Background and experience have no relationship to performance on review quizzes, times to mastery, or rate of progress.

Other factors relating to academic performance include study habits and methods. Entwistle et al. (1971), found they correlated with success more highly at polytechnics than at universities or at colleges of education, but hours spent studying did not correlate with success. At Birmingham, Wankowski and Cox (1973) found the same. They also reported that attendance at lecturers' tutorials showed no relationship to success except in the medical, dental, commerce and social sciences faculties where the correlation was high but negative (-.54 and -.62, respectively). However, good study habits apart from attendance, or contact with lecturers, seem to facilitate performance (Smithers, 1972; Jones et al., 1972).


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There has been great hope for motivational measures in the prediction of academic performance, but results have been mixed. Maxwell, reported by Miller (1970), found motivational characteristics operated differently according to the discipline studied. Vocational orientation helped in Science but made no difference in the Arts. Wankowski and Cox (1973) found that overall motivation and short- and long-term goals showed significant positive correlations with achievement. These were highest for males in commerce and social science and among stable, introverted females. A high failure rate occurred for students whose reasons for entering a university were "indeterminate."

Miller (1970), and later Dunham (1973), found the concept of need achievement useful. Venables (1976) found that motivation rather than ability indicated success for apprentices once they had passed their first-year examinations. This motivation was in turn influenced by the state of trade in their industry, the value placed on their studies by their employers and the appropriateness of the syllabus. Smithers (1974) found that a student's occupational motivation at a technological university correlated with his degree performance and withdrawal level, but even so gave no better prediction than AL's. Jones et al. (1972) found that successful students had a high degree of academic "singlemindedness." Wankowski (1972) found that withdrawal rate was discriminated by goal orientation rather than admission grades. Entwis- tle et al. (1971) found motivation was more highly correlated with success at polytechnics than at colleges of education or universities. How- ever, it is ironic that although success in higher education is associated with introversion, and highly motivated students with good study habits tend to do well, Entwistle et al. (1971) found that there was a tendency for highly motivated students to be extroverted and those with good study habits to be introverted.

There have been attempts to combine personality and motivational factors in predicting performance. Hamilton (1968) found the most fre- quently occuring characteristics were: the need for social aggression and social role playing, heterosexual interest, proness to day dreaming, the balance of the need to be socially dominant and independent with the need to be submissive to authority and dependent, giving a good social impression, persistence, achievement motivation, being restless and impulsive or their opposites, and a need for neatness and organization in one's personal life. Confirming the importance of some of these characteristics, Haley and Lerner (1972) found that successful premedi- cal students had submissive and uncritical attitudes to authority, but a relatively cynical view of human conduct. They were also ambitious to achieve personal, political, or economic power; and they were persistent. Interestingly, they were also less bright and less socially con-



cerned than students who did less well. Wankowski and Cox (1973) found that low extroversion, low neuroticism, high General Certificates of Education, Advanced Levels, and clear goal orientation indicated a ten times greater chance of success than an opposite orientation. La- vin, reported by Miller (1970), found that together social maturity, emotional stability, achievement motivation, cognitive style, curiosity, flexibility, abstraction, achievement via conformance and achievement via independence, all related to academic performance.

Brawer (1973) developed the concept of "functional potential" as an indicator of personal success for college students. This describes the degree to which a student is able to tolerate ambiguity, delay gratifica- tion, exhibit adaptive flexibility, demonstrate goal directedness, relate to oneself and others, and have a clear personal identity. It was con- ceived as "a hypothetical construct built upon psychodynamic princi- ples of human functioning." Brawer found that the level of functional potential was inversely related to dropout rate and positively related to persistence.

Pandey (1973) found that dropouts were similar to good students, being intelligent, conscientious and of high superego strength, but were unlike them in being assertive, stubborn, and independent - good students were humble and submissive.

Stringer (1972) found that Architecture students who failed their exams had higher drive, creative interests, femininity, greater obses- siveness, and were more authoritarian and rigid, while degree class related to organization and leadership.

Although the interaction and grouping of a number of student characteristics appears to result in a more complete picture of the successful student, the correlations involved are often very small and the idiosyn- cratic variable differs with the investigator and the study.

The real problem lies in the nature of the statistical approach. Corre- lational techniques and factor analysis average out traits or characteristics across a population for a particular test or characteristic di- mension, ignoring the patterns of similarities between people. Hamilton and Freeman (1971) felt that complex patterns or profiles of personality and motivation which differ for groups or subgroups need to be consid- ered systematically for prediction to be successful.

Entwistle and Brennan (1971) have attempted to rectify the faults of earlier statistical techniques by using cluster analysis. In this classifica- tion, procedures compare similarities between people and indicate groups of people that have the same pattern of scores. Automatic interaction detection allows subgroups to be produced on the basis of these interactions rather than on arbitary or subjective decisions.

Entwistle and Brennan (1971) found 12 such clusters of students:


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three associated with high achievement (1 to 3), through clusters of average achievement to those associated with students of low attainment (10 to 12). Cluster 1 included male scientists with good AL's and high numerical ability, high motivation, good study methods and examination techniques, and who were introverted but stable. These were em- pirical rationalists, toughminded, conservative, and ambitious with high academic and political values. Cluster 2 included male working class scientists with good AL's and numerical ability, with only average study methods and motivation, who were tenderminded with an ab- sence of esthetic values but with strong religious values. In contrast, cluster 3 included women studying humanities. In ability and study methods, they resembled cluster 1, except that they had high verbal rather than numerical ability. They were religious with low political and economic values, were radical and tenderminded. Clusters that involved students of low attainment were: cluster 10, male students with below average entry qualifications, low motivation and study habit measures, extroverted, not neurotic but toughminded radicals with high social values; Cluster 11 included extroverted male scientists who were toughminded conservatives with average scores on motivation and study habits, and rigid attitudes - they were impulsive rather than soci- able; Cluster 12 consisted of women with low entry qualifications but average ability, with poor examination techniques. They were tenderminded with high religious values combined with low theoretical, political, and economic values.

An alternative statistical technique which has the ability to reveal in- herently types or groups of students was favored by Smithers (1972). This is principle component analysis (he also used regression analysis). Smither's study discovered types of successful students related to different subjects, e.g., in the Physical Sciences these were students of high intelligence who were syllabus-bound and uninterested in creative original work. On the other hand, there were equally successful Physi- cal Science students with poor AL's, but good study habits and practical interests. Another group included students with high loadings on divergent thinking tests, high academic motivation, and scientific interest. Those successful in languages included students with special abilities, who had good AL's, were highly motivated, and adventurous. But another languages type was neurotic, of high intelligence, and had good first-year examination results. Yet a third successful languages group had good study habits, were helpful, highly motivated, and had good first-year examination results. Unfortunately, Smithers (1972) was unable to isolate successful types of Social Science or Pharmacology students.

Either of the above approaches would seem to be more meaningful



and successful in assessing the relevance of different student characteristics for the prediction of academic performance, especially when applied within subject areas. However, the large amount of still unac- counted for variance in student performance suggests that the students might not be the sole arbiters of their success. Their teachers' ability, personality, bias, methods, and numerous variables associated with the institution attended must also be conconsidered for complete and accu- rate prediction of academic performance.

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Issue Table of ContentsResearch in Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1978), pp. 97-192Front MatterEvaluating the Quality of American Universities: A New Approach [pp. 97-109]Student Characteristics and Academic Performance in Higher Education: A Review [pp. 111-123]Leadership Situations in Academic Departments: Relations among Measures of Situational Favorableness and Control [pp. 125-143]Programmed Achievement Using a Within-Class Control [pp. 145-156]Curriculum Development through Delphi [pp. 157-168]Faculty Behavior in Low-Paradigm versus High-Paradigm Disciplines: A Case Study [pp. 169-175]The Effects of Learning Partners and Retests on Pretest-Posttest Scores, Final Course Grades, and Student Attitudes [pp. 177-187]Institutional Research as Organizational Intelligence [pp. 189-192]Back Matter

student characteristic

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