Abstract
In order to determine certain personality traits and their developmental changes as psychological factors that are supposed to prescribe academic achievement of pupils and students, a comparative study of over- and under- achievers who have some discrepancies between their intelligence and achievement was carried out by questionnaire method. The subjects were 2, 628 achievers of both kinds from primary school to college levels, and their academic records of Japanese, arithmetic and English and 27 personality traits selected from “Behavior Record” in schools and by some standards of mental health were chosen. Then, correlations between them were obtained.
As the results, 12 significant academic traits as personality characteristics that indicate positive correlation for the overachievers were extracted. As personality-adjustment-patterns, they were classified into three categories as follows.
1. Individual-adjustment-pattern: eight traits such as 1 Basic life habits, 2 Independence, 3 Feeling of responsibility, 4 Endurance, 5 Introspection, 6 Improvement, 12 Positiveness, and (5) Self-control were included in this pattern, and they occupy about 70% of all academic traits.
2. Social-adjustment-pattern: two traits of 8 Leadership and (2) School adjustment were included in this.
3. Emotional-adjustment-pattern: two traits of 5 Sense of self-importance and (8) Inferiority complex were included in this.
These academic traits were also classified into four developmental patterns: “Decending pattern” with its specific character of gradual decline after primary school to college like the 3 Feeling of responsibility, “Plateau pattern” with its specific character at its middle stage like the 4 Endurance, “Depression pattern” with a opposite trend of the former, and “High initial pattern” with its specific character in lower school stages i.e. from primary school to middle school.
