Explaining the Structural Model of the Relationship Between Personality Traits and Academic Performance in University Students: The Mediating Role of Academic Motivation

One of the critical challenges of education regarding student's academic success is creating motivation and necessary skills for students to deal with academic tasks. Thus, the factors affecting students' academic success have been and still are appealing to educational researchers. Academic performance is not only related to intellectual processes but is also influenced by many psychological factors, including personality traits. In addition, some researches indicate that personality traits are among the factors that affect students' academic motivation. Poor academic performance in the university environment can be related to mental health problems. Academic motivation is one of the urgent needs of daily life for students. By affecting their perception of themselves and self–efficacy in performing tasks and assignments, it also affects the pursuit of their future life goals. The present study aimed to explain the structural model of the relationship between personality traits and students' academic performance, considering the mediation role of academic motivation.

The present study used the path analysis method to conduct a correlational analysis. The statistical population of the present study included all students of Azad University, Science and Research Branch in 2018 and 2019. Of them, 422 students were included in the study by available sampling. The inclusion criteria included engaging in education, not being on probation during the student period, not using psychiatric and psychotherapeutic drugs at the same time, not suffering from chronic physical diseases, and not hospitalization during the past year. The exclusion criteria included disabilities and chronic physical diseases, severe mental illnesses, receiving psychotherapy or medication during the past year, and people's refusal to continue cooperation. The research tools included the NEO Five–Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1989), the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992), and the Educational Performance Test (Dortaj & Delavar, 2005). For data analysis, the Pearson correlation coefficient and path analysis method were used using SPSS version 24 and AMOS version 24 software. The significance level was equal to 0.05.

The present study showed that the hypothesized model had fitness with the collected data (χ2</sup>=2.23, CFI=0.989, GFI=0.998, AGFI=0.952, and RMSEA=0.054). In this study, the indirect path coefficient between academic performance and variables of extroversion (p<0.001, β=0.216), openness to experience (p<0.001, β=0.177), agreeableness (p<0.001, β=0.163), conscientiousness (p<0.001, β=0.176), and neuroticism (p<0.001, β=–0.077) were significant with the mediation of academic motivation.

Based on the research results, extrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between neuroticism and academic performance. Also, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and motivation mediate the relationships between academic performance and variables of conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, and extroversion.