Conscientiousness is a reliable meta-analytic predictor of academic achievement¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2 · i2 medium
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i2 Multiple meta-analyses report average associations between conscientiousness and academic achievement around r = .19–.20. → Ulrich Trautwein 2026

Evidence¶

Ulrich Trautwein 2026¶

Ulrich Trautwein, Janina Eberhart, Charlotte Dignath, Cavan V. Bonner, Brent W. Roberts. (2026). Self-Regulation Competence as a Superpower: An Integrated Framework for K-12. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10190-z

q2 · i2 · review · r2

The review reports four meta-analyses it attributes to Meyer et al. (2023), Mammadov (2022), Poropat (2009), and Richardson et al. (2012), each printing "r = .20", "r = .20", "r = .19", and "r = .19" respectively for the conscientiousness–achievement association.

"Multiple meta-analyses have demonstrated that conscientiousness is a reliable pre- dictor of academic achievement (Meyer et al., 2023: r = .20; Mammadov, 2022: r = .20; Poropat, 2009: r = .19; Richardson et al., 2012: r = .19) across a broad spectrum of different performance indicators"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

Personality Traits — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Conscientiousness is robustly associated with academic performance across primary, secondary, and tertiary education, with openness the next strongest predictor — possibly the same claim (merge candidate)
Of the Big Five personality traits, only conscientiousness (r = .22) and openness (r = .13) correlate appreciably with mathematics achievement — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
Conscientiousness shows the strongest links to SRL and robustly predicts academic performance even after accounting for cognitive ability — related
Stable Dispositions such as conscientiousness predict academic success partly through effort, with some independence from cognitive ability — related

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`conscientiousness-predicts-academic-achievement`
`title`	`Conscientiousness is a reliable meta-analytic predictor of academic achievement`
`description`	`Conscientiousness is a reliable meta-analytic predictor of academic achievement`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`moderate`
`newest_evidence`	`2026`
`generated`	by `process:wiki-ingest` on `2026-10-22`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	1 — `ulrich-trautwein-2026`

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