Modelling Students ' Academic Confidence, Personality and Academic Emotions
Modelling Students ' Academic Confidence, Personality and Academic Emotions
Modelling Students ' Academic Confidence, Personality and Academic Emotions
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00957-0
Abstract
The research presented here is founded on the Big Five trait approach to personality which has been shown to be related to
academic success, students’ academic confidence or self-efficacy and the emotions related to academic achievement.To explore
whether Personality characteristics would be differentially associated with Academic Confidence and both would jointly predict
Academic Emotions.A bespoke online platform was used to survey undergraduate students in two Spanish universities. The data
was used to assess bivariate correlation and to build Structural Equation Models.A total of 1398 undergraduate students studying
Psychology, Primary Education, or Educational Psychology degree programmes completed the validated Spanish version of the
Academic Behavioural Confidence scale. Of those, 636 also completed a validated Spanish language scale to assess Personality
along the Big Five dimensions and 551 of the 1398 students complete a validated Spanish language scale to assess Academic
Emotions. A total of 527 students completed all three scales.The correlations showed that the student Personality traits of
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Agreeableness were significantly and positively related to their Academic
Confidence whilst Neuroticism was negatively correlated with the degree of Academic Confidence. Similarly student
Academic Confidence correlated positively with positive Academic Emotions and negatively with negative Academic
Emotions. Structural Equation Modelling resulted in a model of excellent fit that linked the personality traits of
Conscientiousness and Neuroticism with overall Academic Confidence and Academic Emotion scores. The methodological
issues around the findings along with the implications for undergraduate learning and teaching are discussed.
(2013) omitted the Attendance scale from their analyses and Academic Emotions
generally found only adequate Cronbach’s Alpha values for the
remaining sub scales: Grades = .79, Verbalising = .74 and The learning environment helps to construct appropriate emo-
Studying = .70. tional and motivational characteristics in the learner which, in
Research has shown Academic Behavioural Confidence turn, promote appropriate learning strategies and behaviours
(ABC) to be statistically significantly linked to the students’ deep (Muis et al. 2018) as academic emotions are associated with
or surface approach to learning, and their academic performance specific emotions and motivations in the learner
(Sander 2009; Nicholson et al. 2013; de la Fuente et al. 2013; (Linnenbrink-Garcia et al. 2016).
Putwain et al. 2013). These findings are consistent with findings Academic emotions can be positive or negative and related
from other constructs of competence beliefs, such as academic to different aspects of the learning process (Pekrun 1992). The
self-efficacy that also show a positive relationship with academic research question is to consider the extent of the impact of
performance (Richardson et al. 2012; Robbins et al. 2004). such emotions and their relation to other variables in the learn-
Research has also shown that the ABC scale meaningfully dis- ing process (Niculescu et al. 2015). The extensive work on
criminates between students on different courses. Students on consistency between the attitudinal components of behaviour,
courses with higher entry requirements such as Medicine, cognitions and emotions would predict that the emotions that
Speech and Language Therapy and Nutrition have higher confi- students have in relation to their studies would agree with their
dence in one or more of the Grades, Studying and Attendance cognitions and their behaviour, the later being measured in
sub-scales (Sander and Sanders 2009). this study through the academic confidence scale (Haddock
Sander (2009) summarises findings that show that dys- and Maio 2004).
lexic students in UK higher education have lower aca-
demic confidence on the Grades, Verbalising and The Study
Studying sub-scales but not on the Attendance sub-scale.
Finally, UK data shows that ABC scores drop during a Research has revealed some of the characteristics of the suc-
course of study (Sander 2009), again in line with other cessful learner as well as acknowledging that the efficacy of
research findings (Beyer 1998/1999; Papinczak et al. the students’ learning linked to the teachers’ teaching strate-
2008; Zusho et al. 2003). gies (de la Fuente and Sander 2012; de la Fuente et al. 2013;
de la Fuente 2015; de la Fuente et al. 2017). This has led to the
Personality accumulation of a large amount of data which can be aggre-
gated to explore the relationships between the variables of
Research has shown that the Big Five personality factors academic confidence, personality and academic emotions.
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and The research to date on academic confidence has provided a
Agreeableness positively correlate with university academic valid instrument. However, the relationship of academic con-
performance and Neuroticism negatively or poorly fidence has so far not been tested against personality and ac-
(Richardson et al. 2012; Chen and Schmidt 2015; Köseoglu ademic emotions. This article is motivated by the desire to
2016). Conscientiousness is the strongest predictor albeit it understand how and to what extent personality influences ac-
one moderated by the subject of study (Vedel 2014). De ademic confidence and academic emotions.
Feyter et al. (2012) showed the complexity of the relationship
between personality and university academic performance
through the mediation of self-efficacy and academic motiva- Objectives
tion. How Conscientiousness links to academic performance
is unclear. Additionally, the means by which personality is The objectives are to explore both the relationships between
measured is critical in the size of the relationships obtained, Academic Confidence, Personality and Academic emotions
with self-rating of personality producing smaller effects than and following that to explore structural models of those
other-rated measures of personality (Vedel and Poropat 2017). relationships.
Taken together one would expect that self-reported person-
ality measures would correlate with self-reported academic Hypotheses
confidence as both have been shown to be linked either direct-
ly or indirectly to academic outcomes and academic study & Neuroticism will negatively correlate with academic con-
related behaviour. fidence while Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion
In addition to academic confidence and personality, aca- and Agreeableness will positively correlate.
demic emotions have been extensively researched and shown & Academic confidence will positively correlate with posi-
to be critical in understanding the student learning process in tive academic emotions and a negatively correlate with the
Higher Education. negative academic emotions.
Curr Psychol (2022) 41:4329–4340 4331
& The personality characteristics of the students will be pre- dependent also on the number of items in the scale. The more
dictive of academic emotions items there are, the higher alpha is likely to be so with just two
& Personality and academic confidence will jointly be pre- items one could expect a low alpha value. The absolute cor-
dictive of academic emotions. relation between items 6 and 18, the two items used in the
Attendance sub-scale, is .458.
Confirmatory factor analysis of the four sub-scale structure
of the Academic Behavioural Confidence scale has been sup-
Method portive of the four sub scale structure: Chi-Squared = 759.414,
DF = 98, RMSEA = 0.061, CFI = 0.935, TLI = 0.921.
Participants Big Five Scale (BFQ, Carrasco et al. 2005) was used to
measure personality and was based on a version by
The sample comprised undergraduate students enrolled in Barbaranelli et al. (2003) which was adapted and revalidated
Psychology, Primary Education, or Educational Psychology for young university students (de la Fuente 2014). Students
degree programmes from two universities in Spain. The ma- respond to stems such as “I look forward to seeing other peo-
jority of students were female with ages ranging from 19 to 25 ple”, “I share my things with others” and “I get nervous eas-
and a mean age of 21.33 (SD = 6.9) years. The proportion of ily” on a 5 point scale where 1 signifies Rarely. 2, Not very
female to male and the age profile of the participants matches often. 3, Sometimes. 4, Very often and 5, Almost Always.
the profile of student cohorts on the degrees onto which they The Confirmatory Analysis (CFA) has reproduced a struc-
were enrolled and is therefore representative of students on ture of five scales corresponding to Big Five model. The re-
such programmes. As the data set was an aggregate from sults have shown adequate psychometric properties and ac-
different data collecting moments in which students complet- ceptable adjustment rates. The confirmatory model second
ed scales measuring academic confidence, personality and order showed a good fit [Chi-square = 38.273; Degrees of
academic emotions the exact numbers that appear in the sta- freedom (20–15) = 5; p < 0.001; Normed Fit Index, NFI =
tistical analyses will be reported there but as an indication, the 0.939; Relative Fix Index, RFI = 0.917; Incremental Fix
maximum number of students who responded to the Index, IFI = 0.947; Tucker-Lewis Index TLI = 0.937,
Academic Behavioural Confidence scale was 1398, the Big Comparative Fit Index, CFI = 0.946; Root Mean Square
Five scale, 636 and 551 completed the measurement of aca- Error of Approximation, RMSEA = 0.065; HOELTER in-
demic emotions. dex = 2453 (p < 0.05) and, 617 (p < 0.01)]. The internal con-
sistency of the total Scale is good (Alpha = 0.956; Part 1 =
Instruments 0.932, Part 2 = 0.832; Spearman-Brown = 0.962; Guttman =
0.932).
Academic Confidence was measured by the Academic Academic emotions (AEQ, Pekrun et al. 2002) were mea-
Behavioural Confidence Scale (Sander and Sanders 2009) in sured using scales in Spanish for nine different emotions (en-
a Spanish validated version (Sander et al. 2011). The ABC joyment, hope, pride, relief, anger, anxiety, hopelessness,
scale is a psychometric means of assessing the confidence of shame, and boredom). The psychometric properties of the
undergraduate students in their anticipated study related be- original scale are discussed by Pekrun et al. (2011). The factor
haviours on a largely of lecture-based course. structure of the Spanish version is discussed in detailed by de
The scale requires students to respond to a question stem la Fuente et al. (2019) where it was shown to be satisfactory in
(‘How confident are you that you will be able to...’) on a five- Spanish university students enrolled on Psychology, Primary
point scale (1 = ‘not at all confident’, 5 = ‘very confident’) for Education, and Educational Psychology degree programmes.
items such as ‘...manage your workload to meet coursework Students were invited to read each item carefully and re-
deadlines’ and ‘...write in an appropriate academic style’. A spond using the five point scale provided, where 1- represent-
higher score therefore indicates greater confidence in self- ed Strongly Disagree through to 5 which represented Strongly
efficacious study skills or behaviours. Previous work has Agree. Specimen items for illustration are: “Being confident
shown a four-factor model (confidence in attaining grades, that I will understand the material motivates me”; “Because
studying, attending classes and discussing course material) I’m so nervous I would rather skip the class”; “I worry wheth-
has shown adequate reliability and validity (Nicholson et al. er I have studied enough”.
2013; Sander and Sanders 2009; Sander et al. 2011). The scales measured anticipated study related emotions
The internal reliability measures for the sub scales Grades (hope, anxiety and hopelessness), emotions related to ongoing
and Verbalising are good (Cronbach’s Alphas of .815 and activities (enjoyment boredom and anger) and emotions for
.827 respectively) and that for Studying is acceptable (.703). study progress (pride, relief and shame). As such, the scale
The alpha value of .625 for a reduced Attendance scale seems measures both positive and negative emotions and emotions
poor but as Field (2018) points out, the size of alpha is that facilitate and impede academic studying. The scales used
4332 Curr Psychol (2022) 41:4329–4340
of Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and and for AE-ve, .818 which coupled with the fact that
Openness and the positive academic emotions and a negative Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the academic emotions scale
relationship with the negative academic emotions. The converse was very poor (Table 6) drove the use of this two measure
is found with Neuroticism. Looking at the overall academic emo- conception of academic emotion with overall scores for each
tion scores for the Positive and the Negative emotions, the stron- of positive and negative emotions from the three sub-
ger correlations are found with Conscientiousness again and categories Class, Studies and Test with concomitant benefits
Openness as well with the Positive academic emotions whilst to the model building process (Hoyle 2011).
Neuroticism correlates with the Negative academic emotions. The next stage in building a model of Personality, academ-
These results offer support for hypotheses two and three. ic confidence and academic emotions was to consider the level
They also suggest that it would be acceptable to work with the at which to use the scores from the Academic Behavioural
AE’s at the level of aggregate Positive and appreciate Confidence scale. Originally it was conceptualised as a scale
Negative AE scores. with four factor, Grades, Studying, Verbalising and
To explore the fourth hypothesis, that personally and aca- Attendance (Sander and Sanders 2009) but Putwain et al.
demic confidence will jointly be predictive of students’ aca- (2013) had to remove the Attendance sub scale due to poor
demic emotions, a structural equation had to be built and test- model fit. Therefore it was deemed wise to consider the four
ed against the data and against alternative models. factor model and alternatives which could be used in model-
The first stage in the model building process was to look at ling the data here. The results are presented in Table 7 to
the correlations between Personality, academic confidence which it is worth adding that the Cronbach’s Alpha values
and academic emotions as shown in Table 5 to ask whether for the four factors in the original (2009) model were low
the academic emotion measures, Studies, Class and Test could (Grades, .822; Verbalising, .838; Studying, .699;
be combined for each of the positive and the negative emo- Attendance, .581).
tions to create two academic emotion variables, one for the The three factor model following Putwain et al. 2013) was
positive emotions (AE + ve) and the other for the negative no better so alpha values were not computed. Whilst the two
emotions (AE-ve). Cronbach’s Alpha for AE + ve was .881 factor solution fitted the data very well, it had no theoretical
basis and is mentioned here as a possibility for future research. for the full 5 factor personality model (model 1) with academic
It comprised a factor Grades constructed from items 1, 2, 6, confidence and academic emotion but reducing the personality
15, 16, 20, 22 & 23 from the original scale and a factor contribution to just Conscientiousness, Openness and
Verbalising which remained unchanged (items: 3, 5, 8 & 10). Neuroticism, produced two very acceptable models with Model
When first published (Sander and Sanders 2006) the ABC 3 showing a slightly better fit but less parsimony in comparison
scale was presented as unidimensional and has worked ade- to model 2. Model 2 with an AIC statistic of 4711 presents a
quately at that level. From the data in this study (items 1, 2, 3, better case than model 3 with a greater AIC of 5218, although in
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23) when considered neither case does the AIC statistic approach zero. In Model 2
together unidimensionally has a respectable alpha value of (Fig. 1), all paths are significant at p < .01 (Table 9) and the signs
.851 leading to the decision to use a single Academic confi- of the estimates are as one would predict. The regressions from
dence score calculated from the scale items identified. Neuroticism are negative, the regression to AE-ve is negative and
Confirmatory factor analysis of the Five Factor personality the covariances from ABC and AE + ve to AE-ve and that be-
measures was sound (TLI = .906, CFI = .953, RMSEA = .038). tween Conscientiousness and Neuroticism are negative. These
Inspection of the correlations between the individual Big Five are shown in red in Table 9. The regression from Neuroticism
traits and Academic confidence (Table 1) and academic emotions to ABC whilst having a small load is necessary to the fit of the
(Table 5) shows that the traits Conscientiousness and model. Removing it from the Model 2 yields: TLI = .942,
Neuroticism would seem to be more closely related to CFI = .988, RMSEA = .084 and AIC = 4716.
Academic confidence and to academic emotions than In conclusion, Model 2 is accepted as the preferred model
Openness or Extraversion. Although Openness presents a case to explain the interactions between personality, academic con-
for consideration, the two strongest relating traits are fidence and academic emotions and in that hypothesis 4 is
Conscientiousness and Neuroticism. From considering these cor- addressed. Descriptive statistics for the variables in Model 2
relations, three models were tested each with a uni-dimensional are shown in Table 10.
ABC score, aggregate positive academic emotions, aggregate
negative academic emotions with the full five factor personality
measure (model 1) or with personality represented as just a Discussion and Conclusions
Conscientiousness and Neuroticism score (model 2) or by
Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness (model 3). The This research was motivated by the desire to understand how and
model fit statistics are shown in Table 8 and show a very poor fit to what extent personality influenced academic confidence and
academic emotions and to that end the analyses started by con- These correlational analyses suggest that the confidence
sidering possible relationships between those variables. It was that students have in their academic abilities and behaviour
predicted that academic confidence would positively correlate is related to their personality and relates to their study related
with the traits Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and emotions but it says nothing about any possible causal rela-
Agreeableness, and negatively with Neuroticism. Likewise, it tionships. That the distinct constructs of personality, academic
was predicted that academic confidence would positively corre- confidence and academic emotions are statistically connected
late with positive academic emotions and negatively with the suggests that there is a possibility that they interact (De Feyter
negative academic emotions. Finally, it was predicted that et al. 2012).
Personality would predictably influence academic emotions. Three SEM models were considered and Model 2 (Fig. 1)
In relation to the first hypothesis, each of the academ- accepted as the model best fitting the data as it establishes a
ic confidence sub scales and the total academic confi- consistent and significant relationship between academic con-
dence score correlated positively with Extraversion, fidence and Personality, with Conscientiousness and
Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Openness and Neuroticism being the two traits that connect strongest with
negatively with Neuroticism. Inspection of Table 1 and academic confidence and academic emotions. Openness was
in accordance with previous research (Richardson et al. included in Model 3 but that model was disregarded for being
2012; Chen and Schmidt 2015; Köseoglu 2016; Vedel less parsimonious. That model 2 was left as the working mod-
2014) suggested that Conscientiousness was the trait el should not be interpreted as saying that the remaining Big
most predictive of academic confidence. As predicted Five traits have no role in academic confidence or academic
Neuroticism shows up as the trait associated with lower emotions but rather their connection is somewhat less or less
academic confidence and negative academic emotions direct.
and thus could be linked to less optimal educational out- In relation to the fourth hypothesis, model 2 suggests a
comes (Reese et al. 2017). Complementarily, each of the double emotional route with Conscientiousness appearing as
academic confidence factors and the total academic con- a predictor of academic confidence and positive academic
fidence score correlates positively with the positive aca- emotions, while neuroticism with a lack of confidence and
demic emotions for Studies, Class and Test, and nega- negative academic emotions. This result is consistent with
tively with the negative academic emotions providing previous evidence, which has repeatedly revealed the relation-
support for the second hypothesis. The correlations in ship between neuroticism and negative emotionality. In this
Table 5 show that Personality and academic emotions case, the contribution of this piece of research is to introduce
too are linked in the predicted way. academic confidence as a mediating factor between personal-
ity characteristics and emotions.
This resulting model (model 2) shows that academic con-
Table 6 Confirmatory factory analysis of the academic emotion model fidence, as an attitudinal construct (de la Fuente 2015) is sig-
Model Fit Statistics nificantly associated with personality variables and together
they predict academic emotions; thus, greater academic con-
TLI CLI RMSEA fidence is related to positive academic emotions, while the
lack thereof predicts negative academic emotions. The model
AE Studies 0.867 0.872 0.175
is consistent with the extensive evidence that shows
AE Class 0.825 0.831 0.197
Neuroticism as a limiting factor in learning and achievement
AE Test 0.861 0.866 0.165
(Deason et al. 2019; Nikose, Chari, & Gupta,2018).
4336 Curr Psychol (2022) 41:4329–4340
Limitations and Future Research aspect level in order to follow more carefully the gender dif-
ferences in personality characteristics that may be lost at the
Pervin (1994) drew renewed attention to Mischel’s .30 barrier macro level of five traits.
in research in trait personality theory and from Tables 1 to 5 it Another essential limitation of this work, a limitation
can be seen that many if not most of the correlation coeffi- that future research should resolve, is the relationship be-
cients presented whilst being statistically significant are low, tween the lack of academic confidence and the experience
around .3 or lower. Low but significant correlation coeffi- of academic stress. Also, to be considered is the extent to
cients are neither convincing nor conducive to good model which the teaching context, in interaction with the personal
building. In working with an overall academic confidence characteristics of the students, contributes to academic
score and in constructing aggregate achievement emotion confidence and emotions (Deason et al. 2019; Nikose
scores the degree of unexplained variance in the data has been et al. 2018). The history of psychological research repeat-
lessened. Drawing both on previous research (Richardson edly illustrates the importance of the environment, here an
et al. 2012; Chen and Schmidt 2015; Köseoglu 2016; Vedel environment created by the teacher, in determining behav-
2014) and from examining carefully the data collected, the iour, here the learning of the student.
incorporation of just the traits Conscientiousness and Methodologically, this research has served as a reminder
Neuroticism into the model helped understand the inter- against assuming the stability over time of scale properties.
relationships between the constructs Personality, Academic The Academic Behaviour Confidence scale had shown over
Confidence and Academic Emotions. The selectivity was repeated measures, a four sub scale structure in both UK and
key in deriving a workable model. What remains lacking is Spanish student samples yet this was not supported here. The
the incorporation of mediating factors between Personality data was showing an unaltered Verbalising scale, no
and academic performance (De Feyter et al. 2012) and aca- Attendance scale as found by Putwain et al. (2013), very little
demic performance itself as essentially that is the crucial support for a Study scale but an expanded Grades scale.
factor. Further research could usefully explore the factor structure
The inclusion of other-report measures in addition to self- of this scale and that of the academic emotions scale. One
report measures of variables such as personality and academic might expect the factorial structure of such scales to change
confidence (Vedel (2014) should also be considered. That all as the demographics of the student population change and as
of these are absent in the research considered here is a draw- teaching and learning methods change not least in respect to
back to this research. Finally, it would also be wise to follow the availability and use of online resources requiring different
Weisberg et al. (2011) and measure the Big Five traits at the skills in our students and stressing them in different ways.
Fig. 1 Personality
(Conscientiousness and
Neuroticism) and Academic
Confidence (ABC) combine to
affect student Academic
Emotions (AE + ve and AE-ve).
All paths are statistically signifi-
cant. Standardised estimates are
shown parenthetically
Methodologically, a lot of data was lost due to students not Big Five traits. Thus, students with high Conscientiousness
completing all the scales. The data that went into the fourth phase scores will have higher academic confidence and vice versa
of the results, model consideration, was just a small subset of the and students with higher scores for neuroticism are more likely
data that was collected. Whilst convenient, online completion of to have more negative emotions (Linnenbrink-Garcia et al.
scales and other activities generates this significant drawback. 2016). Therefore knowing the personal characteristics of the stu-
dents could facilitate preventative measures. Students with high
Implications for Practice in Higher Education scores in neuroticism and lower academic confidence should be
subject to intervention to help them manage the worst emotions
The variables of personality and academic confidence are clearly and confidence during learning (Deason et al. 2019).
connected with Personality influencing Academic Confidence The variables measured here are merely hypothetical con-
more than the reverse given the extent of the heritability of the structs that can not be considered to be truly causal per se in
Table 10 Model 2 variable descriptive statistics. The model data came Availability of Data and Material The data that support the findings of
from 527 students this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable
request.
Variable Descriptives
Code Availability Not applicable.
Mean Standard Deviation Scale Maximum
Authors’ Contributions Jesús de la Fuente was responsible for the design
Conscientiousness 3.69 0.060 5 of the study, the collection and input of the data into SPSS and performed
Neuroticism 2.59 0.67 5 the initial analyses in SPSS and AMOS. Paul Sander took responsibility
ABC 3.78 0.53 5 for the writing of the paper, checked and agreed by Jesús. Paul went on to
continue the analyses in SPSS and constructed the final models using
AE + ve 10.34 1.82 15
Onyx. These final results as presented were jointly agreed. Jesús wrote
AE-ve 6.34 1.85 15 the initial draft of the Discussion section which Paul went on to develop
and expand.
We are a team and worked as a team throughout. We are equal con-
tributors to this paper and take equal responsibility whatever the outcome.
determining the successful study behaviour of students and
reflected in their academic emotions. These constructs are Funding Information The research was supported by the R&D Project
PGC2018–094672-B-I00 (Ministry of Science and Education, Spain),
more likely to be proxies for something situational that created UAL18-SEJ-DO31-A-FEDER (University of Almería, Spain), and the
the behavioural characteristics of the personality traits, any European Social Fund.
genetic contribution to personality aside. One possible
candidate is parental involvement in children’s education Compliance with Ethical Standards
which Gorard et al. (2012) found from an extensive review
to be the strongest of a wide range of measures that predicted Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests There are no conflicts of in-
academic school performance. The extent to which parental terest or competing interests.
involvement is remains a prime influencer of academic Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
attainment at university is an avenue for future research but Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adap-
to speculate one can see how the appropriate support and tation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
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(Jäncke 2018).
To conclude, this research was motivated by the desire
to understand how and to what extent personality charac-
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