Ability and Trait Complex Predictors of Academic and Job Performance: A Person–Situation Approach

A battery of cognitive ability, knowledge, and non-ability measures were administered to 105 college students enrolled in a cooperative school-work program and used to predict academic and job performance. Composite scores for each domain were derived from factor analyses of 11 measures of verbal, numerical, and spatial abilities, four measures of domain knowledge, and 27 measures of personality and motivational traits, vocational interests, and self-assessments. Both ability and non-ability trait composites were significant predictors of academic performance, but only the non-ability trait composites predicted job performance. Implications for the integrative assessment of individual differences and their predictive validities for performance in different active work contexts, as well as the importance of trait composites across contexts, are discussed. Un ensemble de mesures relatives aux connaissances, aux aptitudes et autres dimensions furent obtenues aupres de 105 etudiants de 1° cycle impliques dans un programme de travail scolaire cooperatif, avec pour objectif de predire les resultats universitaires et la performance au travail. Des scores composites pour chacun de ces deux domaines ont ete constitues a partir d'analyses factorielles des onze mesures des aptitudes verbale, numerique et spatiale, des quatre mesures portant sur les connaissances et des 27 mesures relevant de traits de personnalite, de la motivation, des interets professionnels et de l'auto-evaluation. Les scores des aptitudes et des traits de personnalite furent des predicteurs significatifs du succes universitaire, mais seuls ces derniers ont predit la performance au travail. On reflechit aux consequences sur l'evaluation synthetique des differences individuelles et leur validite predictive de la performance dans differents contextes de travail productif, ainsi que sur l'importance des scores composites selon les situations.