Big Five Factors andacademic achievement in Russian students

Background: The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits is one of the most com-prehensive personality models in modern psychology. e traits, or domains, of the model, provide an extensive framework, which allows researchers to analyse the correla-tion between the aspects of personality and various aspects of social behaviour. Academic achievement is a key factor in a subject's success, and a more comprehensive understand-ing of its potential factors could improve educational programs and teaching strategies. Objectives: e purpose of this paper is to consider the correlations between the FFM (Big Five) personality traits and the academic achievement of university students in various elds of study. Design: is study has adopted a descriptive analytic approach by exploring previ-ous research data. In the present empirical research, the Big Five factors were measured with the Russian NEO Five-Factor Inventory adaptation by S. Biryukov and M. Bodunov. Academic achievement was dened as the average value of the semester nal grades. e Spearman correlation analysis was used for statistical analysis. e sample includes 207 rst- and second-year university students in the Linguistics Department. Results: e analysis of the published data revealed that Western psychological studies show that consciousness and openness, two values in the model, are more closely connected with the peculiarities of the students' academic achievement in dierent elds of study, but similar studies conducted in Russian universities do not fully conrm this data. Findings of our research proved that consciousness is more associated with greater academic achievement of Russian linguistics students in most elds of study compared to the other FFM traits, while other traits showed more specic correlations with particular elds of study. Conclusions: e data suggests that both environmental and internal psychologi-cal factors, such as motivation, intelligence, inclinations, abilities, etc. aect academic achievement. However, further research suggests that volitional and cognitive personal-ity traits considered in the framework of various models of personality may have a great inuence on academic achievement and should also be taken into consideration. Person-ality traits, especially consciousness and openness of the FFM, are signicant factors of academic achievement. e associations between academic achievement and FFM traits are more prominent in those elds of study that include such features as their relative novelty, diculty or interest for students (Second Foreign Language, Special Disciplines, and Psychology & Pedagogics).