Die invloed van persoonlikheid op die studiesukses van eerstejaar onderwysstudente

M.Ed. (Tertiary Didactics)The Bureau for University Education at the Rand Afrikaans University spearheaded this empirical study as part of a team research project. The relatively high failure rate of first year students and the negative implications it has for an institute of higher education mnde it essential. The Bureau for University Education makes it its object to establish a better student selection mechanism and therefore this study forms part of a team research project that has attempted to identify cognitive and non cognitive factors that may _~ave an influence on the academic achievements of first year students. This study is purely complimentary to the team research project in that it concentrates on a single non-cognitive factor, namely personality, and its influence on academic achievement. This study tries to determine whether personality tests can be of value as part of the selection process at universities. The test group consisted of first year B.A. (Ed.), B.Bibl. (Ed.), B.Com. (Ed.) and B.Sc. (Ed.) undergraduate students who registered at the Rand Afrikaans University during 1988 and 1989. ·Student's t-test was used as a measuring instrument for the relative extensive B.A. (Ed.) group, while the Mann-Whitney U-test was used for the other three groups. The already available data was processed by means of the BMDP3S computer programme. The findings of this empirical study indicate that personality as a single factor cannot be utilised in the prediction of academic achievement on its own, but combined with other cognitive and non cognitive factors it forms an integral part of the selection mechanism