Abstract:

From the beginning of our teaching, one of the work lines that has guided it is the attempt to know what aspects could be involved in the learning and improve the academic performance. Data analysis is a subject that traditionally carries higher rates of repeaters. In previous work (Jara, Rosel, Herrero and Pallarés, 2012), we emphasized the importance of certain strengths that, combined with the student's grade expectation, allowed us to forecast the academic performance. In this paper we will focus on positive personality and attitudinal variables of the student. Specifically, we will consider two variables clearly relevant in academic performance aspects: strengths and satisfaction with the degree held by the student. Works like Kifer (1975), Harris and King (1982), leads to consider the idea that high academic achievement can be fostered by positive personality characteristics; from these assumptions, Park and Peterson (2006) found significant correlations between the different strengths and school performance, especially with "perseverance". González and Pelechano (2004) found a close relationship between knowledge and wisdom associated with academic performance modulated by sex. Giménez (2010) highlights the relationship between the strengths found "love of learning" and "Perseverance" with the variable “performance”. Several authors (Fermin, 1997, Pike and Simpson, 1997; Caballero, Abelló and Palacios, 2007) have highlighted the relationship between performance and satisfaction studies.

Data were taken from first grade students of psychology who voluntarily participated in this research. The assumption that academic performance in "Data Analysis" is a function of the interaction of “Perseverance” and “satisfaction with psychology studies” variables is proposed. The results confirm our hypothesis, if perseverance virtue as independent variable, satisfaction as a control variable and performance as the dependent variable are taken, it is found that there are so many linear relations as satisfaction values were obtained (9 different values).

Keywords:

Strengths, perseverance, grade expectation, performance.