The Relation Between Big Five Personality Traits And Academic Achievement:The Mediating Roles Of Self-efficacy And Response To Teachers’ Criticism

Teachers play an important role in the students’ career development students’ coping styles may be more concrete when facing the specific stressful event of teacher criticism,which is obviously different from the broad coping style defined by previous research.On the other hand,although studies have shown that different personality traits in Big Five personality can have a positive or negative effects on students’ academic achievement,mediation mechanisms underlying these relations have not been well examined.Therefore,the purposes of this study include:(1)to explore the specific coping styles of college students facing teachers’ criticism events,and to develop a questionnaire about response to teachers’ criticism refered to the general coping style questionnaires;(2)to examine the psychometric characteristics of the questionnaire about response to teachers’ criticism;(3)to investigate the chain-mediating effect of self-efficacy and response to teachers’ criticism bias in the relation between Big Five personality and students’ academic achievement,based on Resource Conservation Theory,Social Cognitive Theory and previous studies.In study 1,in order to investigate the coping styles of college students facing teachers’ criticism and develop relevant questionnaires,101 college students were selected to use semi-structured interview and the open questionnaire method(n=13 for semi-structured interview,n=88 for open questionnaire).Otherwise,using questionnaire method,Exploratory Factor Analysis(n = 390,aged between 18-26)and Confirmatory Factor Analysis(n = 327,aged between 17-22)were conducted to explore the structural validity and test the reliability and validity of College Students’ response to teachers’ criticism.In study 2,questionnaires were used to test the mediating effect of self-efficacy and response to teachers’ criticism between Big Five personality and students’ academic achievement(n=439,aged between 17-26).The results showed that:(1)The two-dimensional structure of the questionnaire about the response to teachers’ criticism is reasonable and reliable.(2)Pearson correlation analysis shows that there were significant positive correlations between agreeableness,conscientiousness,positive response to teachers ’ criticism and self-efficacy.However,whether the total effect is significant or not is not a prerequisite for mediating effect analysis,this study constructs a mediating effect model according to the questions it raised.(3)The results of the mediating model with Big Five personality as predictors shows that:Positive response to teachers’ criticism played a mediating role between neuroticism,extraversion and conscientiousness of the Big Five personality on academic achievement;Self-efficacy and positive response to teachers’ criticism played a chain-mediating role in the relationship between neuroticism,extraversion,openness and conscientiousness of Big Five personality and students’ academic achievement.In the framework of this study,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)College students’ response to teachers’ criticism can be divided into positive and negative dimensions.(2)Positive response to teachers’ criticism played a mediating role between neuroticism,extraversion and conscientiousness of the Big Five personality on academic achievement.(3)Self-efficacy and positive response to teachers’ criticism played a chain-mediating role in the relationship between neuroticism,extraversion,openness and conscientiousness of Big Five personality and students’ academic achievement.Theoretically,on one hand,the current study confirmed the associations between Big Five personality and students’ academic achievement;On the other hand,the study explored the mediation mechanisms between Big Five personality and students’ academic achievement by combining self-efficacy and response to teachers’ criticism.Otherwise,To a certain extent,the questionnaire about the response to teachers’ criticism can support the measurement of students’ coping style in the face of teachers’ criticism.In practice,the study can draw people’s attention to college students’ academic achievement,and provide an important reference for promoting students’ academic achievement.