Personality traits as a factor in self-regulation of learning of academically gifted studentsPaper
The theoretical basis of the research is Bandura's cognitive social theory, and the aim of the research is to examine the importance of personality traits for self-regulatory learning in academically gifted students. Thus, the focus of the study is on the relationship between self-regulation elements and personality traits from the perspective of gifted students. This empirical quantitative research is exploratory and it is carried out using the method of systematic non-experimental observation. This paper presents only a part of the initial examination findings. Personality traits are recorded by the Big Five-BFIIV test, and a Likert-type scale battery (KSU-ten subscales) is used to record components of self-regulated learning, whose reliability coefficients are expressed by Cronbach's coefficient of 0.84. The factor structure of the scales as defined in the consulted literature is confirmed. The sample is convenient and it consists of 311 students of the Teacher Education Faculty (University of Belgrade), of which 92 are academically gifted and whose grade average is above 9.00. Predictive variables are: gender, year of study, personality traits, motivation, and criteria are: components of self-regulation (meta-cognitive strategies; attributional style ...) and students´ academic success (average grade in studies).
Basic findings:
• Tests show that the average grade in studies correlates with the results on the scale of self-regulation of learning (KSU-battery ten subscales) (r = 0.471) at the level of 0.01, which leads to the conclusion that self-regulation of learning is one of the important factors for academic achievement.
• Personality traits explain 32.1% of the variance in the discriminativeness of the proactive and defensive pattern of self-regulation and implied connections between the components of these patterns, their connection with learning outcomes and support the need for further research on the conceptualization of the depressive pattern of self-regulation.
• Gender and year of study failed to prove to be significant factors for the relationship between the observed variables.