RIASEC interests and the Big Five personality traits matter for life success—But do they already matter for educational track choices?

Abstract

Objective: Educational track choices have far-reaching consequences because they are associated with long-term life success. Theoretical approaches and previous empirical research have nearly exclusively identified family background and achievement as determinants of these choices. Although students’ educational track choices might fit their personality, individual differences in personality have not been explored. We investigated the effects of two personality aspects—RIASEC interests and Big Five traits—on hierarchically ranked track choices (vocational vs. general educational track), alongside family background and achievement. Method: We used two German data sets (TOSCA 10 study: N = 473; TOSCA study: N = 4,218) focusing on choices between the general educational track (leading to higher educational attainment) and the vocational track (leading to work life) at two different stages in educational careers. We ran several multiple (logistic) regressions. Results: The results showed that certain aspects of students’ personality matter for educational track choices. Accordingly, across both studies, students with high Investigative or Enterprising interests more often chose the general educational track, whereas students with high Social or Conventional interests more often chose the vocational track—after the Big Five personality traits, achievement, and family background were controlled for. The Big Five traits showed no or only small significant associations with educational track choices. Conclusion: These findings underscore the importance of considering individual differences when investigating important life outcomes such as track choices. © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Personality published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Achievement family background Vocational interests Big Five traits educational track choice

Index Keywords

female human male psychology Humans Decision making adolescent Article Students student academic success vocation longitudinal study Longitudinal Studies occupation Germany Choice Behavior career human experiment major clinical study adolescent behavior personality family Occupations mental capacity achievement ego development Personality Development

Author Affiliations

Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tubingen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

Funding & Acknowledgements

European Social Fund, ESF

Funding text 1: Preparation of this manuscript was partly financed by the Educational Research Network of the Baden‐Württemberg Stiftung. Additionally, it was supported by the Tübingen Postdoc Academy for Research on Education (PACE) at the Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, Tübingen, funded by the Baden‐Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts. This research was also supported by a grant awarded to Marion Spengler from the European Social Fund and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden‐Württemberg.; Funding text 2: Preparation of this manuscript was partly financed by the Educational Research Network of the Baden-W?rttemberg Stiftung. Additionally, it was supported by the T?bingen Postdoc Academy for Research on Education (PACE) at the Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, T?bingen, funded by the Baden-W?rttemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts. This research was also supported by a grant awarded to Marion Spengler from the European Social Fund and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-W?rttemberg.

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RIASEC interests and the Big Five personality traits matter for life success—But do they already matter for educational track choices?

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