The Role of Personality and Gender in Performance in Science and Engineering

The Big Five Inventory (BFI) measuring the 5-factor personality model was given to 440 science and engineering students in introductory physics classes at a large university. Science and engineering students showed similar personality characteristics as would be expected from measurements of the general population, with women scoring significantly differently only on the neuroticism scale. The BFI facets had differential explanatory power for the test average and the course grade with the conscientiousness facet as the only significant treatment effect on class grade. While conscientiousness was a significant regression variable for grade, it was not significant for test average. Personality facets, when combined with high school GPA, explained substantially different levels of variance in course grade for male and female students.