The Impact of Personality Type and Gender on Students' Performance in a Business Capstone Course

ABSTRACT An empirical study of Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS-II) finds that students' personality type as measured by the KTS-II correlates to their performance as evidenced by course grade in an undergraduate business capstone course. The study also examines the association between gender and course grade. The findings indicated that personality types combined with gender produces students who outperform their counterparts. The results suggest that female students who are feeling and judging types performed better in the course than others in the class. Some educational and managerial implications are discussed. INTRODUCTION The theory that individuals exhibit specific personality types was introduced by Carl Gustav Jung in his book Psychological Types in 1921. Jung described a set of dichotomous differences in the human psyche that he defined "introverted" and "extroverted. " In a related paper in 1936, Jung expanded his concepts by describing two additional dichotomous sets of psychological types thinking vs. feeling and sensation vs. intuition (Storr, 1983). Myers and Briggs (Myers, 1975) expanded on Jung's original theory of personality by creating a fourth dimension of judging vs. perceiving with judging types being organized and planned while perceiving types being flexible and adaptive. Introversion (I) vs. Extroversion (E) The dichotomy of extroversion and introversion (? -I) involves how individuals prefer to "focus their attention" and "gain their energy" (Myers, 1998). Extroverts focus their attention and gain energy through interaction with the external world of people, activities and things; while introverts focus their attention and gain energy through the inner world of ideas, impressions, and emotions. Introverts may prefer written communication while extroverts may prefer to communicate using discussion and interaction. Sensation (S) vs. Intuitive (? ) Schloemer and Schloemer (1997) discussed that the dichotomy of sensing vs. intuition involves how individuals gather and process information. Individuals with a preference for sensing rely more on their five senses, and are more focused on facts and details. Sensing types tend to organize input sequentially and prefer detailed instructions with concrete information. Intuitive types start with a view of broad concepts seeing patterns, connections and trends organizing them as a more workable general framework. Intuitive types may dislike detail oriented activities, preferring to process information in a top down format as opposed to the detailed, fact based bottom up approach of sensing types. Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F) The ? and F functions deal with how an individual makes decisions. Those individuals who conform to the thinking type definition tend to use a logical, objective decision process, while those who resemble the feeling type are inclined to use a value-based or subjective process which puts more emphasis on how the decision will impact others (Schloemer and Schloemer, 1997). Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P) Judging types prefer to be planned, organized, and prefer closure and the settling of things. Perceiving types are less planned and may prefer to keep their options open. While judging types may be more organized, perceiving types may be more spontaneous tending to rely on their ability to adapt to a changing situation (Myers, 1998). The MBTI and KTS-II Instruments The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a survey instrument with over 120 questions designed to access an individual's personality preferences in four primary areas: introvert/extrovert, sensing/intuitive, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. Keirsey and Bates (1998) developed a 70 question survey which measures the same 16 personality types as the MBTI instrument. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS-II) has grown to become one of the most widely used personality inventory measuring tools in the world. …