The Success of Technical College Students in Relation to Scores on Attitude, Personality and Intelligence Tests

Abstract

A representative sample of the students of an area technical college completed an intelligence test, a personality questionnaire, a biographical questionnaire and an attitude record constructed by the semantic differential technique. Interviews were conducted with a third of the sample. The intelligence scores showed the expected non-verbal bias, mean scores on the non-verbal part of the test being at about the level reported for university students while the verbal/numerical scores were much lower. The personality profile was nearer to that of American students than to that published for British university students. Attitudes to the college and related topics, when analysed by factor analysis, had a three-dimensional structure. The marks awarded in each examination were standardised, and the mean of the standardised marks of each student used as a criterion of relative academic performance. This criterion score was not related to the intelligence scores, and the association with personality traits was marginal. Two subsamples of successful students were studied, the first selected on the basis of the criterion score alone and the second by their self-rating in the biographical questionnaire as extremely hard workers. The latter subsample also had high criterion scores, and their personality profile contrasted with that of the students who left their courses without completing their examinations. Both subsamples of successful students had more favourable attitudes than the majority to certain of the more arduous college activities, and the method of attitude analysis used is considered worthy of further development. The case histories and test scores of the successful students showed great diversity, including extremes of intelligence and of introversion and extraversion, and varied backgrounds. It is concluded that any improvement in students! achievement is more likely to follow from greater individual attention to their motivation than from more rigid application of selection criteria.