Relation Between Personality Traits and Academic Performance Among University Students of RAKMHSU, UAE-Using a Big Five Model

Abstract

Introduction Students from diverse health care professions, their personality traits have a positive influence on their academic performance. This is viewed as an indicator of collaborative education and practice for efficient patient care. The health-care professional sciences graduates who join health sciences program should be highly motivated and determined to perform academically well to accomplish their goals. The personality trait assessment gives a holistic approach to know how efficiently students use their cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains for learning which improves patient-doctor relations and ultimately results in patient satisfaction. The objective of the study was to assess the preferred personality trait and to know its relation to their academic performance. Materials and methods The study design adopted was a prospective, cross sectional using a stratified randomized sampling. First year students enrolled for medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy programs at RAKMHSU were included in the study. The Big five model questionnaire was administered to study participants during their self-study hours and data collected were analyzed in SPSS version 18. Results The most common personality trait was openness 43% followed by agreeable 21%. The analysis of their GPA (Grade point average) found that agreeableness had high GPA and Neuroticism had the lowest GPA among all traits. The study also found that high unsuccessful students were seen with Neuroticism (31.5%), Extraversion (26.3%) followed by other traits. Conscientiousness also had positive and significant correlation with AP (p<0.001) along with agreeableness. In conclusion, each student is unique, and their personality trait can be used as an aptitude test tool during their admission process for health care professions related courses.