Intelligence, Personality and Performance on Case Studies

Standard individual difference antecedents of two stages in the case study assessment process were determined in a sample of 305 students. We found that antecedents to the problem identification and analysis stages of case assessment differed. Specifically, we tested intelligence and personality traits as the predictors and found that openness to experience was significantly positively correlated with an individual’s score on problem identification and that general intelligence was significantly positively correlated with an individual’s score on analysis. Additionally, there was a positive relationship between extraversion and agreeableness and an individual’s analysis score and a significant negative relationship between conscientiousness and an individual’s score on problem identification. Moreover, intelligence and conscientiousness interacted to predict an individual’s analysis score with high conscientiousness partially compensating for an individual’s relatively low intelligence.