Abstract

Several factors directly or indirectly influence academic achievement of students. There is immense variation in students’ academic achievement due to individual differences. Therefore, every individual has different personality characteristics that influence life, especially students’ academic achievement. Thus, the current study investigates the influence of personality types A and B on academic achievement of university students. This study presents a descriptive design. Furthermore, a random sampling technique was used for the sample selection. The Anjum-Khalique Scale and students’ GPAs were utilized as research tools.  Correlation, regression and t-test were employed for data analysis. Findings exposed that personality types A and B have overall significant impact on academic achievement of students. Significant academic achievement difference was found between male and female students of type B personality unlike type A personality. It is recommended that deficiencies in personalities may be taken into consideration by teachers, administrators, educators, curriculum developers and policymakers for improvement in academic achievement. 

Key Words

Academic Achievement, Influence, Personality type

Introduction

Personality is considered as the internal processes emerged in combined form of emotions, interpersonal and attitudes that harmonize the reaction, behavior and interaction with others and as a result becomes main factor which has considerable impact on behavior of humans (Fayez and Labib, 2016). It is observed that many theorists have classified and measured personality traits and types from diverse viewpoints (Kantan et al., 2017). Thus, the present study examined two different personality types A and B in this research with its impact on students’ academic achievement. Spector and Connell (1994) uncovered two personality types A and B.  

Several researchers have highlighted different characteristics of Type-A personality. They have aggressive nature, are achievement oriented, vibrant, hard-working, self-confident, irritated, passive, determined and unfriendly (Cooper, Kirkcaldy, & Brown, 1994). In addition, Type A individuals are frequently considered as “workaholics” as they are multi task oriented and are much encouraged to take extra work responsibilities in order to attain success (Radsepehr, et al., 2016).

 In contrast, Type-B individuals have a more peaceful and stress free nature. They have no time exigency and are quite the reverse to Type-A individuals. A Type-B personality possesses characteristics to be relaxed without any stress. Type B individuals usually do not have conflicts with others. Type Bs have stable personality that leads them to strive for their goal achievement in a steady way unlike Type As who generally work racing against the clock (Mahajan & Rastogi, 2011). Type B personality is regarded as even-tempered and has ability to adjust in change environment easily (Radsepehr, et al., 2016).

Another important variable in the present study is academic achievement. According to Glass as quoted by Kocher (2008), most commonly the term academic achievement refers to the level of achievement shown by students during an assessment. Most of the researches have been done by using the students’ percentages and GPAs in their final exams as an academic achievement while in educational process the outcome of teaching in term of marks and CGPAs is known as academic achievement. Because it is the level of achievement that student attain after completing the course work in terms of objective completion i.e. to what extent the student have learned or master the material. 

In Pakistan, there is less attention paid towards personality development. Various important characteristics of personality are overlooked in individuals generally and in students particularly and as a result these personality characteristics have shown negative effect on academic achievement of students later on. So, there was an entire need of such exploration that how personality influence academic achievement of students and to what extent. Therefore, the current research intended to examine the “Influence of personality Types A and type B on academic achievement of students in Universities.”

Objectives of the study

• To identify the personality types (A&B) of university students.

• To examine the academic achievement of university students.

• To find out gender wise comparison of academic achievement of type A and type B personality students.

• To find out the impact of type A and type B personality students on their academic achievement.




Hypotheses of the Study

H1= There is significant impact of type A personality on academic achievement.

H2= There is significant impact of type B personality on academic achievement.

Literature Review

Academic achievement of students has gained special attention in earlier research.  It is a challenging aspect of academic literature and is influenced by several important factors (social, psychological, economic, environmental and personal factors).  Literature lists different factors that affect students ‘academic achievement (Reda & Mulugeta, 2018). So, personality is considered to be one of these factors that greatly influence academic achievement.

Sameen and Burhan (2014) and Hussein (2014) have highlighted in their study that Type A personality shows signs of creativity as compared to others. Furthermore, Type As are expected to committed with their work and play significant role in enhancing positive relationship with working environment. This is all because Type A personality has a preference to take undue responsibilities and face new challenges, work  till long duty hours and have a greater dedication to their responsibility (Baka & Derbis, 2012; Moodley, 2010).

Several studies have highlighted that type A personality is significantly correlated with academic achievement (Nighat, 2003). Furthermore, there are various characteristics of Personality type A that resembles with big five personality trait; conscientiousness. Prior studies have considered conscientiousness as an important component that resembles theoretically with type A Personality and is positively associated (Steinmayr, & Spinath,2007) and strongly correlated with academic achievement (John et al., 2008; Hakimi et al., 2011; Ghazi et al.,2013;  Dunne, 2015; Poropat, 2009; Trapmann, et. al., 2007). Conscientiousness is constantly found to be strongest predictor of academic achievement (Busato, Prins, Elshout & Hamaker, 2000; Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003b; Furnham et al., 2003; Kling, 2001). Additionally, there is positive relationship between academic achievement and conscientiousness (Al-Naggar, Osman, Ismail, Bobryshev, Ali & Menendez-Gonzalez, 2015; Ambreen & Jan, 2015). 

Earlier studies exposed that Extraversion; main aspect of five factor model, MBTI and Eysenck personality theory has theoretical resemblance with type B Personality has shown contradictory results in literature with academic achievement. A number of studies have unveiled negative significant relationship of extraversion with academic achievement (DeYoung, 2010; Rosander, 2013, Hakimi et al., 2011) while, some studies have exposed significant stronger positive relationship with academic achievement (Premuzic and Adrian Furnham, 2003) and other have uncovered low relationship (Ghazi et al., 2013). In addition, several latest researches have shown that extraverts perform low in academic setting (Sanchez-Marin, Rejano-Infante & Rodriguez-Troyano, 2001).

Methodology

Population

The population of the study comprised of all the undergraduate university students in Public universities. 




Delimitations of the Study

Study was delimited to Undergraduate university students studying in Semester 3rd and 4th of social sciences faculty of academic year 2016-2017. 







Sample

Sample comprised of 500 undergraduate university students (250 students of type A personality and 250 students of type B personality) from five public universities were selected randomly.




Research Instruments

Firstly, Anjum-Khalique Scale (1991) was used for the identification of type A personality (i.e. time urgency, competitiveness and aggressiveness etc) and also measures Type B behavior pattern that is opposite to Type A (Social, easy going person, avoiding hard work, talking patiently, feeling satisfied etc.). It contains 12 pairs of items in which the participants have to choose one item from each pair. One point is assigned to each responded item purporting to measure Type A and B behavior pattern. The maximum score is 12 (Batool et al., 2014).

Secondly, Academic achievement was examined by students’ last semester GPA. Similar approach is used in the study of Uludag (2013).




Pilot Testing

For Pilot testing data were collected from the Islamic International University Islamabad. About 100 participants were selected randomly from undergraduate level of social sciences. Reliability was found to be 0.7 by applying Cronbach’s Alpha. Questionnaires were shown to two educational experts for improvement. After the experts validation data were collected for the original study.




Data Collection and Ethical Considerations of Study

All the questionnaires were administered by the researcher herself in the selected universities. Selected students were asked to fill the questionnaires. They were ensured about the ethical issues regarding data collection. Questionnaires that were not fulfilling the criteria were exempted from the study.




Data Analysis

Data were analyzed by using inferential statistics. Firstly, correlation was employed and then for further analysis regression analysis was run to find out the impact of personality types on academic achievement of university students. Moreover, Independent sample T-test was applied for gender wise comparison of academic achievement of type A and type B personality.

Results

Table 1. Influence of Type-A Personality on Academic Achievement of Students

S.No.	Traits of Type A Personality	Correlation Analysis		Regression Analysis
		r	Sig	T	Sig
1.	Getting angry	-.561	.060	-1.005	.316
2.	Urgency	.430	.001	-2.115	.035
3.	Hostility	-.355	.053	-1.854	.065
4.	Get ahead on one's competitor	.633	.011	7.896	.000
5.	Seeking Challenge	.543	.023	2.323	.021
6.	Reacting aggressively	-.241	.071	-.641	.522
7.	Getting impatient	-.392	.083	-.344	.731
8.	Believing Doing one's  job well	.436	.037	4.692	.000
9.	Believing in taking the task	.773	.000	3.083	.002
10.	Tending to be an achievement oriented person	.871	.000	2.111	.036
11.	Getting Irritated	.454	.010	-5.605	.000
12.	Finding it difficult to wait for one's turn	.535	.020	-5.059	.000

Table 1 indicates that some items (achievement oriented and hardworking characteristics, seek challenges and are task oriented) have positive relationship with academic achievement of personality type A. Positive relationship depicts that if independent variable increases then dependent variable will also increase. Above table also depicts positive impact on academic achievement of university students with significant results as P<.05.  On the other hand, few items (getting angry, hostility, reacting aggressively and getting impatient) of personality type A have shown negative correlation. Negative relationship depicts that if independent variable increases then dependent variable will decrease and vice versa. Above table have negative impact with insignificant results as P>.05

Table 2. Influence of Type-B Personality on Academic Achievement of Students

S.No.	Statements	Correlation Analysis		Regression Analysis
		r	Sig	T	Sig
1.	Tending to be social person.	.701	.000	5.876	.000
2.	Taking disappointment philosophically.	.567	.011	1.644	.102
3.	Doing things one by one.	.494	.036	2.685	.008
4.	Avoiding hard work.	-.667	.042	-2.529	.012
5.	Preferring to postpone today’s work for tomorrow.	-.762	.002	-5.334	.000
6.	Tending to be an easy-going person.	-.350	.054	-6.417	.000
7.	Adopting a non serious approach to work in hand.	.341	.071	-.296	.767
8.	Getting ready in a leisurely way for University.	.693	.044	-1.302	.194
9.	Caring much about health.	-.423	.031	-1.418	.158
10.	Talking patiently to people even when engaged in work.	.542	.012	4.135	.000
11.	Feeling satisfied with the present achievement.	.742	.000	4.641	.000
12.	Giving way to one’s competitor.	-.653	.020	-3.452	.002

Table 2 indicates that some items of personality type B have significant relationship (P<.05) with academic achievement of university students. In contrast, few items (taking disappointment philosophically, adopting a non serious approach to work in hand, getting ready in a leisurely way for University and caring much about health) of personality type B have shown less correlation with insignificant results as P>.05. It also indicates that some items (easy going, are not much focused on study, avoid hard work, delay work and give way to other competitors) of personality type B have negative and significant impact (P<.05) on academic achievement of university students. Moreover, few items (tending to be social person, doing things one by one, talking patiently, feeling satisfied with the present achievement) have positive relationship and positive impact with significant impact (P<.05) on academic achievement of personality type B of university students.

Table 3. Comparison of Academic Achievement of Type A&B Personality Students

Personality Types	N	Mean	SD	df	t	Sig.
A	250	3.7596	.29793	249	17.574	.000
B	250	2.9596	.64771

Table 3 depicts that there is significant difference between the academic achievements of A and B personality types as p< 0.05. Type-A personality students scored more mean scores than type-B  personality students on academic achievement that reflect that they have better academic achievement than type B students.

Table 4. Gender Wise comparison of Academic Achievement of Type A and B Personality Students

Personality Types	Gender	N	Mean	SD	df	t	Sig.
A	Male	125	3.7510	.29808	248	.524	.601
	Female	125	3.7710	.29874
B	Male	125	3.2723	.42278	248	2.157	.032
	Female	125	3.1464	.46060

Table 4 depicts that there is no significant difference between the academic achievements of males and females of personality type A as p > 0.05. It also reflects that there is significant difference between the academic achievements of males and females of personality type B as p< 0.05. 

Discussion

Present study results exposed the significant influence of personality types A and B on academic achievement. Both hypotheses were accepted as students have received significant impact of personality types on their academic achievement. Characteristics of students’ personality are involved in the improvement of students’ efficiency of learning and resultantly students’ academic achievement is enhanced. When comparison was done between both personalities (type A and type B), it was observed that Type- A personality students have scored more as compared to the counterpart. 

Similarly, study conducted by Sanchez-Marin et al., (2001) reported that extraverts perform low in academic setting that resembles theoretically with Type B personality. In contrast, Fakhri et al., (2014) did not find any difference between academic achievement of Type A and Type B personality students. Moreover, gender wise comparison reflected in type A personality showed same level of academic achievement in both genders unlikely to type B that showed significant difference between both genders.  

 Present study results supported the following mentioned studies and reported that type A personality has significant correlation with academic achievement (John et al., 2008, Hakimi et al., 2011; Ghazi et al., 2013; Dunne, 2015; Poropat, 2009; Trapmann et al., 2007). In addition, the association between academic achievement and Type A personality is also found positive (Al-Naggar et al., 2015; Ambreen & Jan, 2015).  

Present study reflected mix results of Type B Personality. Some items of type B personality are consistent with the study results of DeYoung, (2010), Rosander, (2013) and Hakimi et al., (2011) reporting negative significant correlation with academic achievement while, few of the items of personality type B shown positive and significant results consistent with the study results of Premuzic and Adrian Furnham, (2003). Some items of personality type B reported low correlation with academic achievement consistent with the study results of Ghazi et al., (2013), Steinmayr and Spinath, (2007). 

The reason for such results may be that Type A personality students have achievement oriented and hardworking characteristics, they seek challenges and are task oriented that have positive influence on their academic achievement. Type As work under pressure and engage them in challenging activities to achieve their goals (Baka and Derbis, 2012). From this discussion we may infer that Type As are hardworking and task oriented that make them to perform better academically.  In contrast, Type B personality students are easy going, are not much focused on study, avoid hard work, delay work and give way to other competitors are the characteristics that have negative impact on their academic achievement. Type Bs have social nature, they are more indulge in social activities. Moreover, another reason for these results may be due to the several others factors (culture of school, learning, teaching, attitude of teachers) and many more other than personality that may influence academic achievement but are not included in the study due to time limitation. 

Findings and Conclusions

Results explored the positive as well as negative relationship of Type A and B characteristics with academic achievement. Some characteristics of type A personality were positively correlated with students’ academic achievement. It clearly depicts if these characteristics (achievement oriented and hardworking characteristics, seek challenges and are task oriented) of type A personality will increase then academic achievement of students will also increase and vice versa. In contrast, several characteristics of type A personality were negatively correlated with academic achievement of students. It’s obvious if these characteristics (getting angry, hostility, reacting aggressively and getting impatient) will increase then academic achievement will decrease and vice versa. 

Various characteristics of type B personality were negatively correlated with students’ academic achievement. It’s evident that if these characteristics (easy going, are not much focused on study, avoid hard work, delay work and give way to other competitors) of type B personality will increase then academic achievement of students will decrease and vice versa. In contrast, quite a few characteristics were positively correlated with academic achievement of students. It’s apparent that if these characteristics (tending to be social person, doing things one by one, talking patiently, feeling satisfied with the present achievement) will increase then academic achievement will increase and vice versa. However,  some items (taking disappointment philosophically, adopting a non-serious approach to work in hand, getting ready in a leisurely way for University and caring much about health) of personality type B have shown less correlation with academic achievement. 

By concluding above findings, the current study explored the influence of Type A and B personality on academic achievement of students. Additionally, Type-A personality students have scored more on academic achievement than type B personalities. 

Recommendations

So, in this regard, it is recommended that personality screening on individual basis may be done in institutions at the time of admission. So, deficiencies that lie in the students’ personality may be highlighted and rectified by taking precautionary measures.  Specifically, teachers in class by improving teaching methodology may enhance students’ academic achievement.  

Furthermore, students may be prepared and guided to overcome their personality issues by themselves. In addition, concerned teachers may incorporate with the students’ counselors to resolve personality problems. It is highly recommended that training sessions may be organized for teachers to enhance personality grooming skills and resultantly students’ learning. 

Moreover, at macro level, personality development interventions plans may be infused in curricula so that students’ may become aware of their deficiencies that affect educational attainment and strategies may be adopted personality wise to enhance the positive impact of personality characteristics and minimize the negative impact of personality characteristics generally and with regard to education specifically.

 It is recommended for future study that there are several other factors (students’ back ground, students’ interest and study habits) and many more factors that were not highlighted in the present study may be taken into consideration so that reasons for personality problems may be further explored and rectified.

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