The role of personality temperament and student learning in principles of economics: Further evidence

Understanding economics is a process of gathering information, making sense of information, building conceptual models, and using these models to evaluate and analyze different situations and alternatives. Jungian psychological theory suggests that different personality temperaments prefer to receive and process information differently. My hypothesis is that personality type plays an important role in a student's understanding of economics, as measured by standard measures of student performance. More precisely, given the more analytical nature of economics, some personality types may succeed in economics more readily than do others. Furthermore, faculty personality type is also important in determining the way in which economic concepts are presented. Thus if students and faculty have the same personality type, they are more likely to receive and process information in a similar fashion, which may lead to increased performance in economics courses. Understanding the ways in which different personality temperaments gather and process information can lead to more effective pedagogies that will benefit all economics students. Borg and Shapiro (1996) found that student personality type is an important determinant of student performance in economics. In this article, I improve and extend their work in two important ways. I replicate Borg and Shapiro's analysis with a larger sample of students and a larger, more diverse group of faculty. I also investigate the role of personality type on both a student's knowledge of economics (stock) and on learning in an economics course (now) using alternative measures of student performance in economics.