Personality Traits and Style of Life as Factors of School Performance in Adolescents

The authors studied social and demographic characteristics, style of life and school performance on the sample of adolescents aged from 11 to 18 years (1013 participants from different layers of the society). Personality traits were assessed with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Grey-Wilson Personality Questionnaire and the Inventory of Child Individual Differences. Structural equation modeling showed that an adolescent's personality factors and sex play a pivotal role in his/her academic achievements, whereas family factors have a significantly less influence. Among personality traits the most important ones are Openness and Introversion, while among the social factors the most significant is the type of school. Family welfare, its unity and parental supervision contribute to the adolescent's school success, whereas Psychotism, Behavioural Activation and psychoactive drugs are considered risk factors.

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