The effect of personal values on academic achievement

Abstract

Numerous studies have demonstrated the importance of individual and contextual variables in explaining academic performance. Among the individual variables, personal characteristics such as sociodemographic variables have been investigated. Regarding the contextual variables, the influences of parental and school styles have been studied. However, personal values could also contribute to understanding students’ achievement. The present study aims to analyse the relationship between personal values and academic performance. To do so, we first adapted two scales that aimed to measure the meaning of life and intellectual humility by following a committee approach. The Spanish version was administered to 54 students to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scales. The results and information provided by the experts were used to create revised versions of the scales, which were administered to 154 students together with other instruments focused on evaluating academic performance. The correlations between personal values and academic performance were computed, and the academic performance of students with different scores in personal values was compared. Intellectual humility was related to cognitive skills, and differences were identified in the academic performance between participants with high and medium scores in personal values. The implications and the utility of the adapted versions of the instruments are discussed.