ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1650271
This article is part of the Research TopicEmotional Intelligence in Educational Psychology: Enhancing Learning and DevelopmentView all 10 articles
EXPLORING THE PREDICTORS OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: THE ROLE OF PERSONALITY, RATIONAL BELIEFS, AND SELF-EFFICACY
Provisionally accepted
Lucica Emilia COȘA*
Vasile Cernat- Teacher Training Department, ”George Emil Palade” University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Sciences and Technoloy of Târgu Mureș, Târgu Mureș, Romania
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This study examines the predictive roles of personality traits, rational/irrational beliefs, and self-efficacy in academic performance, while also investigating how these factors interact with gender, residence, and school type. Data were collected from 453 students at George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science, and Technology in Târgu Mureș using the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ), the General Self-Efficacy Scale (SES), and the short-form Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (ABSs). Results revealed that institutional factors, particularly high school type, emerged as the strongest predictors of academic performance. Among the psychological traits, aggressiveness/hostility, impulsive sensation seeking, and rationality significantly predicted academic performance. Notably, impulsive sensation seeking was positively linked to higher performance in female but not male students, while aggressiveness/hostility predicted better performance only among students with high self-efficacy. These findings highlight the potential for tailored intervention programs that take into account gender and personality differences to improve academic outcomes.
Keywords: academic performance, self-efficacy, Rational beliefs, aggressiveness, impulsive sensation-seeking
Received: 19 Jun 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 COȘA and Cernat. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lucica Emilia COȘA, Teacher Training Department, ”George Emil Palade” University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Sciences and Technoloy of Târgu Mureș, Târgu Mureș, Romania
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