Personality Psychology and Learning Strategies

RST and Academic Performance

• Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) is a theory influenced by sensitivity to appetitive and aversive stimuli within behavioral learning theory.
• Research has examined RST's implications for learning in response to different reinforcement parameters.
• The status of RST as an account of individual differences in learning processes is unproven.
• There is a lack of research testing RST's implications for learning outside the laboratory, especially in academic or organizational settings.

Big Five and Course Grades

• Critical thinking, effort regulation, elaboration, rehearsal, help-seeking, metacognitive self-regulation, organization, peer learning, and time & study environment are learning strategies.
• Scales in blue had strongest correlations with grades in a previous year.
• Openness correlates with critical thinking, elaboration, help-seeking, and time & study environment.
• Conscientiousness correlates with effort regulation, rehearsal, metacognitive self-regulation, organization, and peer learning.
• Agreeableness correlates with conscientiousness.
• Extraversion correlates with help-seeking and time & study environment.

What Seems to Work?

• Openness/Intellect: Curiosity, finds abstract thought rewarding.
• Conscientiousness: Industriousness, orderliness.

Limitations of the Big Five

• Based on how people describe each other, often circularity of reasoning.
• Lacks a focus on the basis of personality.

Behavioural Approach System

• Identifying the appropriate goal.
• Subgoal scaffolding (Corr, 2008).
• Planning behavior.
• Executing the plan.

Behavioural Approach System Components

• Reward Interest: The tendency to notice and seek rewarding situations or activities.
• Goal-drive persistence: To put in continued effort and persistence to attain the reward.
• Reward reactivity: To respond positively to attained rewards.
• Impulsivity: To engage in risky or unplanned behaviors.

Big Five, RST, and MSLQ Study

• 281 students in 2016PSY.
• Completed a battery of surveys at the beginning of the course:
  • Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire.
  • Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory – Personality Questionnaire.
  • Mini-IPIP.

Results: Big Five and Learning Strategies

• Openness:
  • Critical Thinking: 0.17.
  • Elaboration: 0.27.
  • Help-Seeking: 0.27.
  • Time & Study Environment: 0.28.
• Conscientiousness:
  • Effort Regulation: 0.36.
  • Rehearsal: 0.17.
  • Metacognitive Self-Regulation: 0.29.
  • Organisation: 0.32.
  • Peer Learning: 0.43.
• Extraversion:
  *Help-Seeking: 0.27
  *Time & Study Environment: 0.28

Results: RST and Learning Strategies

• Reward Interest:
  • Critical Thinking: 0.36.
  • Elaboration: 0.29.
  • Help-Seeking: 0.40.
  • Organisation: 0.32.
  • Time & Study Environment: 0.31.
  • Peer Learning: 0.27
• Goal-Driven Persistence (GDP):
  • Effort Regulation: 0.32.
  • Rehearsal: 0.58.
  • Metacognitive Self-Regulation: 0.51.
  • Time & Study Environment: 0.39.
  • Peer Learning: 0.58

Results: Multiple Regression - Variance Accounted

• Multiple regression analysis examining variance accounted for in learning strategies by personality traits.

• Effort regulation (.30)
• Elaboration (.24)
• Rehearsal (.21)
• Metacognitive self-regulation
• Organisation
• Time & study environment
• BAS Goal-Drive persistence (7 items)
  • I put in a big effort to accomplish important goals in my life
  • I often overcome hurdles to achieve my ambitions
  • I work hard to do well in university courses even if I don't like what we are doing
  • I try to apply ideas from course readings in other class activities such as lecture and discussion
  • I memorize key words to remind me of important concepts in class
  • I try to change the way I study in order to fit the course requirements and the instructor's teaching style
  • I make simple charts, diagrams, or tables to help me organize university course material
  • I make sure that I keep up with the weekly readings and assignments for university courses

Summary

• Despite being partly based in learning theory, RST is not widely used in the study of academic learning.
• Previous research using the Big Five finds conscientiousness and openness to be consistently associated with effective learning strategies.
• A recent study found the BAS Goal-drive persistence scale to be associated with effective learning strategies.
• Even when accounting for conscientiousness. Also accounting for the other big five traits. Looking at unique elements that are contributed in motivation, drive and reward.