Personality scale validities increase throughout medical school.
Abstract
Admissions and personnel decisions rely on stable predictor-criterion relationships. The authors studied the validity of Big Five personality factors and their facets for predicting academic performance in medical school across multiple years, investigating whether criterion-related validities change over time. In this longitudinal investigation, an entire European country's 1997 cohort of medical students was studied throughout their medical school career (Year 1, N = 627; Year 7, N = 306). Over time, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness factor and facet scale scores showed increases in operational validity for predicting grade point averages. Although there may not be any advantages to being open and extraverted for early academic performance, these traits gain importance for later academic performance when applied practice increasingly plays a part in the curriculum. Conscientiousness, perhaps more than any other personality trait, appears to be an increasing asset for medical students: Operational validities of conscientiousness increased from .18 to .45. In assessing the utility of personality measures, relying on early criteria might underestimate the predictive value of personality variables. Implications for personality measures to predict work performance are discussed.
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In a prospective study of an entire cohort of Belgium's medical students, the correlation (corrected for censoring) of Conscientiousness for GPA increased from r=0.18 in the first year to r=0.45 in the seventh and final year.
“Consistent with this possibility, in a prospective study of an entire cohort of Belgium's medical students, the correlation (corrected for censoring) of Conscientiousness for GPA increased from 0.18 r in the first year to 0.45 r in the seventh and final year (Lievens, Dilchert and Ones [2009]).”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Lievens, Dilchert and Ones [2009]
Cites
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- Authors
- Lievens, F., Ones, D. S., & Dilchert, S.
- Affiliations
- Ghent University (BE)
- Baruch College (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Psychology
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 94
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1514-1535
- ISSN
- 0021-9010 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1854
- OpenAlex
- W2054924611
- Cited by
- 213
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 25 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 10.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Applied Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Singapore Management University Institutional Knowledge (InK) (Singapore Management University) (submittedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Medical Education and Admissions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Keywords
- Big Five personality traits, personality facets, medical students, academic performance, grade point average, criterion validity, longitudinal change, conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to experience, medical school admissions, personnel selection, job performance prediction
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Belgium, Educational Measurement, Extraversion, Psychological, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Personality, Personality Inventory, Student Dropouts, Students, Medical, Reproducibility of Results, Young Adult, Emotional Intelligence
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