Abstract:

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of educational institutions shifted from a traditional face-to-face education to an online model of education. Both students and teachers experienced many difficulties transitioning towards remote education, including the need to learn new strategies of teaching and adjusting study habits. Many students reported a decrease in study motivation, academic performance and showed lower interest in online courses due to less competition, less engagement, and fewer external rewards (Anistal et al., 2006; Pelikan et al., 2021). Student academic progress in online courses is also related to their personality. For instance, academic performance significantly correlates with agreeableness and openness to experience (Richardson, Abraham, & Bond, 2012). Openness and agreeableness have significant but small positive correlations with grade point average (GPA) for online education as well (Alkis & Timzel, 2018). In addition, intrinsic motivation is associated with academic performance (Richardson, Abraham, & Bond, 2012).

The objective of this research was to investigate how agreeableness and openness to experience are related to academic motivation and academic performance among students studying online during the COVID-19 pandemic. One hundred and three university students from European countries, aged 18 to 25, were recruited for this study on social media. Most of them were junior or senior students, who had from 5 to 7 online courses the previous semester. Participants completed the Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999), the Academic Motivation Scale for College students (Vallerand et al., 1993), and reported their individual GPA scores for the last online academic semester.

The results of this study indicate no significant correlations either between openness and intrinsic motivation or between agreeableness and extrinsic motivation. There were also no relationships between openness and academic performance. However, a small negative correlation between agreeableness and amotivation and a small positive correlation between openness and amotivation was found. In addition, students who were more agreeable, were more intrinsically motivated, while students who were more open to experience, had less external motivation when studying online. Thus, agreeable students may still push themselves to be driven, while more open students may become less engaged while studying online because may not be motivated.

Remote ways of education may require methods and educational strategies that are different from those used in the classroom. Thus, there is a need to develop strategies that tap into motivational sources of students, adapting the existing online study programs to the students’ needs. The academic performance of students studying online and, in the classroom, may need to be investigated further, to gain more insights into the differences and the ways to assess learning. Finally, if students are motivated to study and feel connected to the class, their academic achievement may be improved and engagement in the educational process enhanced in a variety of ways.

Keywords:

Online education, academic motivation, academic performance, agreeableness, openness to experience.