Personality types and student performance in an introductory physics course

We measured the personality type of the students in a large introductory physics course of mostly life science students using the True Colors instrument. We found large correlations of personality type with performance on the precourse Force Concept Inventory (FCI), both term tests, the postcourse FCI, and the final examination. We also saw correlations with the normalized gain on the FCI. The personality profile of the students in this course is very different from the profile of the physics faculty and graduate students, and also very different from the profile of students taking the introductory physics course intended for physics majors and specialists.

Figure 1

Illustrating the calculation of the centroid.

Figure 2

The centroids (the red dots) and the mean of the centroids (the open circle). (a) Physics faculty. (b) 1st year physics majors and specialists. (c) Physics grad students.

Figure 3

The centroids of the students, the mean of the centroids (the open circle), and histograms of the centroid values.

Figure 4

Precourse FCI scores for different personality types.

Figure 5

Box plots of grades on test 1 for different personality types.

Figure 6

Box plots of grades on test 2 for different personality types.

Figure 7

The normalized gain for different personality types.

Figure 8

Comparing blue and green students. Cliff’s $\delta$ (solid black) and Cohen’s $d$ (dashed red) for the precourse FCI (Pre), the first term test (T1), the second term test (T2), the postcourse FCI (Post), and the final examination (Final).