The Relationship between Big Five Personality Traits and Academic Performance in Medical Students

Introduction: Personality is an integration of individuals’ characteristics, benefits them to be successful in their career path. In the field of education, the educators, researchers, and psychologists are on the constant explosion of the tightfisted set of variables that predicts patterns of students’ behaviors, and their association with academic achievement. Objectives: to assess the big five personality traits among medical students, and to find out the relationship between ‘Big Five’ personality traits and academic achievement of undergraduate medical students. Method: A cross-sectional study conducted on122 medical students of year one and two Universiti Sultan from Zainal Abidin, Malaysia. The researchers used a convenient sampling method in the selection of the study sample. Students’ personality traits were assessed using the USM personality inventory USMaP-I scale. Academic scores collected from the academic office. Collected data entered into excel sheet, IBM SPSS version 22 used for the statistical analysis. All the Big Five Personality traits of students positively predicted students overall grade. Of all personality traits, openness, and neuroticism positively related to student’s academic achievement, predicted their overall grade .The student's traits, agreeableness, and conscientiousness showed an association but not with significance. Another dimension extraversion was positively related (r =.150) but not statistically significant. Conclusion: The study results evidence the Big Five Personality Traits has an association with the Academic Performance of Medical Students. Conceptualizing this fact could be useful for the teachers, mentors, and counselors to guide their students. Additionally, students can help themselves in their academic progress and strengthen their career paths.