Perfectionism, test anxiety, and neuroticism determines high academic performance: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Academic performance is an important issue for Korean students. Various psychological factors contribute to academic performance. We aimed to evaluate the psychological factors that affect academic performance integratively. Methods: A total of 102 academic high achievers and 120 comparison participants were recruited. We evaluated psychological factors (test anxiety, perfectionism, personality traits, resilience, and self-efficacy) and measured academic performance using the College Scholastic Ability Test and the current college grade. We compared psychological factors and academic performance between the academic high achiever and comparison groups. Multiple linear regression was then conducted to identify the significant psychological factors for high academic performance. Further, we used cluster analysis to classify the comparison group by the significant psychological factors and compared them among clusters and academic high achievers to determine the psychological characteristics of academic high achievers. Results: The academic high achiever group showed lower test anxiety (p =.002), less neuroticism (p =.001), higher self-efficacy (p =.028), and less socially prescribed perfectionism (p