Why do personality traits predict scholastic performance? A three-wave longitudinal study

The present three-wave longitudinal study undertaken among 836 Chinese secondary school students (M_age = 15.35), tested the Big Five Narrow Trait model (B5NT, Zhang & Ziegler, 2016). The B5NT model suggests that students’ personality traits influence scholastic performance via their impact on learning approaches and self-beliefs. Utilizing the longitudinal nature of the data, the assumed lagged effects were tested for Chinese, Mathematics, and English. Structural equation modeling indicated that controlling for fluid intelligence, students’ personality traits still contributed to their scholastic performance and, importantly, that these influences were mediated by learning approaches and self-beliefs. Our findings support the B5NT model. We also discuss the theoretical and empirical contributions of this study, potential model extensions, and make suggestions for future research.