Relation between type of personality and academic performance among Malaysian health sciences students

Abstract

Background: This study was carried out to determine the relationship between types of personality and level of academic performance among health sciences students in Malaysia.Methods: A total number of 246 students were participated in this study. The questionnaire was distributed randomly from students of each semester. Data were entered and analyzed using PASW Statistics Version 18.0. Relationship between GPA and BFA were analyzed using the multiple linear regressions. The Spearman’s correlation, multiple linear regression were used in this study. Findings were presented with adjusted OR, 95% CI and p-value.Results: The majority of the study participants were single (98%), Malay (62.2%). This study revealed that the most dominant personality trait was openness (32.8 ± 5.1) and the least dominant was neuroticism (23.9 ± 4.4). Spearman’s correlation analysis showed that there was correlation between GPA and the following types of personality: openness (p=0.001), conscientiousness (p<0.001), extraversion (p=0.018). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that openness and conscientiousness personalities were positively associated with academic performance (p=0.047, p=0.036; respectively).Conclusion: Our study, for the fist time, assessed the relationship between types of personality and level of academic performance among health sciences students in Malaysia. Openness and conscientiousness personalities were found to be positively associated with academic performance.