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Article
A predictive psychometric model to identify personality and gender differences of college majors.
USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications
  • Noel Mark Noël
  • Philip J. Trocchia
  • Michael Luckett
SelectedWorks Author Profiles:

Michael G. Luckett

Philip J. Trocchia

Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Disciplines
Abstract

This research applies Cattell's 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) (Cattell & Schuerger, 2003) to compare and contrast personality traits among undergraduate men and women enrolled in business and liberal arts colleges. Specific attention is given to what personality differences exist between accounting as the most popular business major, and that of psychology as the most popular liberal arts major. For added comparison, we further juxtaposed marketing, which contains a combination of consumer psychology and analytical business skills. Analysis of variance among the three majors found the differences in 10 personality factors to be significant and a multivariate analysis of variance determined gender a significant covariate. While this research provides a detailed personality profile unique for each major, stepwise discriminant analysis isolated one personality factor providing a predictive model of 42.8% while gender contributed 5.1% for a predictive psychometric model of 47.9%. This research is unique as it compares personality differences among business majors with a popular nonbusiness major, isolates the impact of gender, and provides a parsimonious predictive model that can be used to identify a compatible fit between personality and gender by college major.

Comments
Abstract only. Full-text article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in The International Journal of Management Education, 14, 240-247. doi: 10.1016/j.ijme.2016.05.004. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.
Language
en_US
Publisher
Elsevier
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
Citation Information
Noel, N.M., Trocchia, P., & Luckett, M. (2016). A predictive psychometric model to identify personality and gender differences of college majors. The International Journal of Management Education, 14, 240-247. doi: 10.1016/j.ijme.2016.05.004