Cognitive Investments in Academic Success: The Role of Need for Cognition at University
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Previous research has shown that Need for Cognition (NFC), the individual tendency to engage in and enjoy cognitive endeavors, contributes to academic performance. Most studies on NFC and related constructs have thereby focused on grades to capture tertiary academic success. This study aimed at a more comprehensive approach on NFC's meaning to success in university. We examined not only performance but also rather affective indicators of success. The current sample consisted of 396 students of different subjects with a mean age of 24 years (139 male). All participants took part in an online survey that assessed NFC together with school performance and further personality variables via self-report. Success in university was comprehensively operationalized including performance, satisfaction with one's studies, and thoughts about quitting/changing one's major as indicators. The value of NFC in predicting tertiary academic success was examined with correlation analyses and path analysis. NFC significantly correlated with all success variables with the highest correlation for study satisfaction. Path analysis confirmed the importance of NFC for study satisfaction showing that NFC had a significant direct effect on study satisfaction and via this variable also a significant indirect effect on termination thoughts. This study clearly indicates that NFC broadly contributes to the mastery of academic requirements and that it is worthwhile to intensify research on NFC in the context of tertiary education.
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High levels of NFC have a positive impact on performance and school grades.
“High levels of NFC have a positive impact on performance (Weissgerber et al., 2018) and school grades (Grass et al., 2017; Luong et al., 2017; Strobel et al., 2019).”
From Retrieval Practice Is Effective Regardless of Self-Reported Need for Cognition - Behavioral and Brain Imaging Evidence (2022) · cites this paper as Grass et al., 2017
Table 2 in Results (page unavailable) reports positive correlations between NFC and both school GPA (r = 0.16) and university GPA (r = 0.19). But the path analysis in Results found no significant direct path from NFC to grades, so the paper supports an association, not the claimed positive impact. (LLM, conf=0.90)
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- Authors
- Grass, J., Strobel, A., & Strobel, A.
- Affiliations
- Chemnitz University of Technology (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Grass, Julia
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2017-05-16
- Volume
- 8
- Pages
- 790-790
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5432647
- OpenAlex
- W2615256180
- Cited by
- 77
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 17 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 10.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- corrigendum (2017-07-21)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Qucosa (Saxon State and University Library Dresden) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Outcomes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Keywords
- need for cognition, academic performance, university students, learning satisfaction, higher education, personality traits
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