Using personality traits to predict correspondence between self-perception of academic competence and achievement: A latent profile analysis study

This study was interested in the level of correspondence between high school students' self-perceptions of academic competence and achievement. The objectives were to (a) identify different profiles of students in terms of correspondence between perceptions of general academic competence and achievement in language arts and mathematics, (b) describe the personal and family characteristics of the students in these profiles, and (c) associate personality traits defined by the Big-Five with these profiles. A latent class analysis and a multinominal logistic regression were conducted on the data collected from 309 ninth and tenth graders. Among the most salient results, five profiles of students were identified, three of which with competence perceptions corresponding with achievement (i.e., high achievers with high self-perceived competence (SPC), average achievers with average SPC, and low achievers with lower SPC) and two with competence perceptions showing no or little correspondence with achievement (i.e., low achievers with higher SPC and average achievers with lower SPC). Also, students scoring high on openness to experience and conscientiousness were more likely to belong to the profile of high achievers with high SPC. These findings contribute to the literature on the possible reasons why students hold accurate or biased self-perceptions of competence.