The research infers that being a responsible and hard working student, together with being engaged in what goes on at school, coupled with good reading and writing skills only helps a teenager obtain high grades. These factors are also positive predictors of educational and occupational success on leaving school. The significance appears to extend for many decades later. Such success is independent of parental socioeconomic status or other personality factors.
To arrive at these conclusions, researchers, led by Professor Marion Spengler, from the University of Tübingen, assessed data collected by the American Institutes for Research. These data related to 346,660 U.S. high school students, beginning in 1960. The data was supplemented with with follow-up data from 81,912 of those students 11 years later plus a further 1,952 students some 50 years later.
The first data set, linked to the high school encompassed student behaviors and attitudes together with personality traits, cognitive abilities, parental socioeconomic status and demographic factors. Whereas the follow-up data analyzed overall educational attainment, [plus income and occupational prestige.
The overall data pattern showed how being a responsible student, with a keen interest in school and displaying good reading and writing skills, were each significantly associated with higher educational attainment and securing more prestigious jobs when measured against the 11 years and 50 years post-high school time points.
The new research has been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, with the peer reviewed research paper titled “How You Behave in School Predicts Life Success Above and Beyond Family Background, Broad Traits, and Cognitive Ability.”
