Fake it ‘til you make it: Measuring personality in university admissions

Each year, university admissions officers endeavour to select the best and brightest from a set of applicants. Traditionally, cognitive measures such as high school grade point average and standardized test scores are weighted most heavily in admissions decisions. However, there is growing concern that cognitive measures fail to capture other important skills that are correlated with academic achievement and therefore do not adequately predict success in higher education. In order to get a broader and more complete picture of each applicant’s academic potential, many admissions professionals are exploring the use of non-cognitive measures to capture the soft skills that are valued in education and correlated with academic success. Specifically, personality is a non-cognitive trait that has gained increased attention in admissions contexts. In particular, current research shows that the personality trait Conscientiousness demonstrates consistent, strong positive correlations with academic achievement. However, trait instability during late adolescence and early adulthood, contextual influences on personality, and limitations associated with commonly used self-report personality measures make it challenging to justify the inclusion of personality assessments in high stakes admissions decisions. This paper explores the role of personality measurement in predicting academic success among university applicants. Predicting success in higher education is an important task. Unsuccessful students not only take away spaces from other students who may have been successful in a particular university1 program, but also tend to drop out of programs, negatively impacting university revenue. Each year, admissions officers endeavor to select the best and brightest from a set of applicants. In the current Canadian university climate of declining application numbers, it is becoming more difficult to attract and recruit top quality students. Consequently, Canadian admissions officers are tasked with the challenge of selecting individuals most likely to be successful in university from a diminishing pool of applicants. 1 Please note that much of the American research uses the term “college” to refer to academic higher education, whereas Canadian research uses “university”. In this paper we have used university for our own ideas, but adopted whatever term the author used when citing or referring to other pieces of research. 52 LaPointe & Merchant Graduate Student SYMPOSIUM, Selected Papers, Vol. 9 Traditionally, cognitive measures such as high school grade point average (HSGPA) and standardized test scores (e.g., SAT and ACT scores) are weighted most heavily in admissions decisions (Atkinson & Geiser, 2009). Cognitive measures have a long history of reliably predicting academic achievement among students (Lundberg, 2013; Richardson, Abraham, & Bond, 2012). However, there is growing concern that cognitive measures ignore the multidimensional nature of academic achievement (Lundberg, 2013; Noftle & Robins, 2007). Furthermore, there is evidence that the sole use of cognitive measures disadvantages certain groups (Caldwell & Komarraju, 2014; Kaufman, Agars & Lopez-Wagner, 2008). Consequently, many admissions professionals are exploring the use of non-cognitive measures to capture the soft skills that are valued in education and correlated with academic success (Heckman & Kautz, 2012; Kyllonen, 2005). Increasingly, personality has been identified as a non-cognitive trait that adds unique predictive power beyond traditional cognitive measures (Conrad, 2006; Heckman & Kautz, 2012; Komarraju, Kamau, & Schmeck, 2009). Personality is defined as “the relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reflect the tendency to respond in certain ways under certain circumstances” (Roberts, 2009, p. 140). While cognitive ability reflects what an individual can do, personality reflects what an individual will do (O’Connor & Paunonen, 2007). Various personality frameworks exist in the literature; however the Big 5, outlined by the American Psychological Association, is the most dominant and widely accepted (Heckman & Kautz, 2012; Lundberg, 2013). Personality and Its Role in Academics