The Big Five Personality Dimensions and the Process of Institutional Departure.

This study investigated the role of the "Big Five" personality dimensions in the dynamics of institutional departure in a convenience sample of 240 first-time, first-semester students enrolled in Introduction to Psychology at a large southwestern state university. Of the "Big Five" dimensions (agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience), structural equation modeling revealed that conscientiousness exhibited the largest total effect on institutional departure (-.293). Conscientiousness exerted indirect effects (-.133) on institutional departure via organizational involvement, initial institutional commitment, and cumulative GPA as well as a direct effect (-.160) on institutional departure. Only 14 of the 240 students departed the institution within 1 year. A discriminant function analysis of institutional persistence versus departure, using cumulative GPA, institutional commitment, and conscientiousness as predictors, yielded a high false positive rate (67.6%) and a high sensitivity rate (78.6%). Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

[1]  V. S. Sexton.  FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO ATTRITION IN COLLEGE POPULATIONS: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF RESEARCH. , 1965, The Journal of general psychology.

[2]  J. Block,et al.  Attribution therapy requestioned: A secondary analysis of the Wilson-Linville study. , 1984 .

[3]  Ernest T. Pascarella,et al.  Voluntary freshman attrition and patterns of social and academic integration in a university: A test of a conceptual model , 1977 .

[4]  John N. Gardner.  The Freshman Year Experience. , 1986 .

[5]  Paul B. Duby,et al.  A Test and Reconceptualization of a Theoretical Model of College Withdrawal in a Commuter Institution Setting. , 1983 .

[6]  D. Chapman,et al.  A Multiinstitutional, Path Analytic Validation of Tinto’s Model of College Withdrawal , 1983 .

[7]  Mardy T. Eimers,et al.  Minority and Nonminority Adjustment to College: Differences or Similarities? , 1997 .

[8]  R. McCrae,et al.  Environmental and dispositional influences on well-being: longitudinal follow-up of an American national sample. , 1987, British journal of psychology.

[9]  Ernest T. Pascarella,et al.  Predicting voluntary freshman year persistence/withdrawal behavior in a residential university: A path analytic validation of Tinto's model. , 1983 .

[10]  Icek Ajzen,et al.  From Intentions to Actions: A Theory of Planned Behavior , 1985 .

[11]  Caryl E. Rusbult,et al.  Exchange variables as predictors of job satisfaction, job commitment, and turnover: The impact of rewards, costs, alternatives, and investments. , 1981 .

[12]  K. Bollen.  A New Incremental Fit Index for General Structural Equation Models , 1989 .

[13]  A. Cabrera,et al.  The Role of Perceptions of Prejudice and Discrimination on the Adjustment of Minority Students to College , 1996 .

[14]  M. Castañeda,et al.  College Persistence: Structural Equations Modeling Test of an Integrated Model of Student Retention. , 1993 .

[15]  N. Abeles,et al.  Motivational differences between high and low scholarship students. , 1954 .

[16]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Modeling cognitive adaptation: a longitudinal investigation of the impact of individual differences and coping on college adjustment and performance. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  B. Zimmerman,et al.  Impact of Self-Regulatory Influences on Writing Course Attainment , 1994 .

[18]  E. Boyer.  A classification of institutions of higher education , 1987 .

[19]  L. Corno,et al.  Student volition and education : Outcomes, influences, and practices , 1994 .

[20]  B. Zimmerman,et al.  Self-regulation of learning and performance: Issues and educational applications. , 1994 .

[21]  L. R. Goldberg.  The structure of phenotypic personality traits. , 1993, The American psychologist.

[22]  John P. Bean,et al.  An approach/avoidance behavioral model of college student attrition , 1995 .

[23]  Bruce J. Biddle,et al.  Effects of peer, faculty, and parental influences on students' persistence. , 1990 .

[24]  Paul T. Costa,et al.  From catalog to classification: Murray's needs and the five-factor model. , 1988 .

[25]  L. Tucker,et al.  A reliability coefficient for maximum likelihood factor analysis , 1973 .

[26]  Norman D. Aitken.  College Student Performance, Satisfaction and Retention: Specification and Estimation of a Structural Model. , 1982 .

[27]  Heilbrun Ab.  PERSONALITY FACTORS IN COLLEGE DROPOUT. , 1965 .

[28]  Amaury Nora,et al.  Testing Qualitative Indicators of Precollege Factors in Tinto’s Attrition Model: A Community College Student Population , 2017 .

[29]  T. Newcomb,et al.  Readings in Social Psychology , 1948, Teachers College Record.

[30]  D. Bartholomew.  The sensitivity of latent trait analysis to choice of prior distribution , 1988 .

[31]  D. Watson,et al.  Affect, personality, and social activity. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  D. Watson,et al.  On traits and temperament: general and specific factors of emotional experience and their relation to the five-factor model. , 1992, Journal of personality.

[33]  Amaury Nora,et al.  The Convergence between Two Theories of College Persistence , 1990 .

[34]  Murray R. Barrick,et al.  THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS , 1991 .

[35]  J. Finch,et al.  A comparison of the influence of conflictual and supportive social interactions on psychological distress. , 1999, Journal of personality.

[36]  J. M. Digman.  PERSONALITY STRUCTURE: EMERGENCE OF THE FIVE-FACTOR MODEL , 1990 .

[37]  M. Sobel.  Asymptotic Confidence Intervals for Indirect Effects in Structural Equation Models , 1982 .

[38]  John P. Bean.  Interaction Effects Based on Class Level in an Explanatory Model of College Student Dropout Syndrome , 1985 .

[39]  Jeffrey J. Mchenry,et al.  PROJECT A VALIDITY RESULTS: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PREDICTOR AND CRITERION DOMAINS , 1990 .

[40]  M. Okun,et al.  Staying in College: Moderators of the Relation Between Intention and Institutional Departure. , 1996 .

[41]  Gene M. Smith.  Usefulness of Peer Ratings of Personality in Educational Research , 1967 .

[42]  R. Baker,et al.  Measuring Adjustment to College , 1984 .

[43]  Barbara S. Metzner,et al.  The estimation of a conceptual model of nontraditional undergraduate student attrition , 1987 .

[44]  Vincent Tinto.  Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research , 1975 .

[45]  Ernest T. Pascarella,et al.  Predicting Freshman Persistence and Voluntary Dropout Decisions from a Theoretical Model , 1980 .

[46]  C. Izard,et al.  Emotion in adult development , 1984 .

[47]  F. G. Brown.  Identifying College Dropouts with the Minnesota Counseling Inventory , 1960 .

[48]  Barbara S. Metzner,et al.  A Conceptual Model of Nontraditional Undergraduate Student Attrition , 1985 .

[49]  P. Terenzini,et al.  Influences on students' internal locus of attribution for academic success in the first year of college , 1996 .

[50]  Trudy H. Bers,et al.  Persistence of community college students: The influence of student intent and academic and social integration , 1991 .

[51]  Benjamin S. Bloom,et al.  Methods in Personality Assessment , 1957 .

[52]  Timothy J. Pantages,et al.  Studies of College Attrition: 1950––1975 , 1978 .

[53]  Howard Schuman,et al.  Effort and Reward: The Assumption that College Grades Are Affected by Quantity of Study , 1985 .

[54]  C. F. Elton,et al.  Another look at the college dropout. , 1966 .

[55]  Lyn Corno.  The Best-Laid Plans , 1993 .

[56]  A. Cabrera,et al.  Determinants of withdrawal behavior: An exploratory study , 1991 .

[57]  B. L. Driver,et al.  Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to Leisure Choice. , 1992 .

[58]  Frances K. Stage.  Motivation, Academic and Social Integration, and the Early Dropout , 1989 .

[59]  P. Bentler,et al.  Comparative fit indexes in structural models. , 1990, Psychological bulletin.

[60]  B. Zimmerman.  Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Achievement: An Overview , 1990 .

[61]  M. Freedman.  The Passage Through College , 1956, Redefining the New Woman, 1920–1963.

[62]  Ernest T. Pascarella,et al.  Toward the validation of Tinto's model of college student attrition: A review of recent studies , 1980 .

[63]  I. Ajzen,et al.  Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior , 1980 .

[64]  Ernest T. Pascarella,et al.  Differential impacts of academic and social experiences on college-related behavioral outcomes across different ethnic and gender groups at four-year institutions , 1996 .

[65]  P. Karoly,et al.  Application of investment theory to predicting part-time community college student intent and institutional persistence/departure behavior. , 1991 .

[66]  W. Vélez,et al.  Access to and Opportunity in Postsecondary Education in the United States: A Review. , 1996 .