Is Doing Your Homework Associated with Becoming More Conscientiousness?

Is Doing Your Homework Associated with Becoming More Conscientiousness? Richard Göllner et al. Journal of Research in Personality. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.08.007

Highlights
•    More effort in students’ homework is associated with a more positive development in conscientiousness.
•    Effects remain stable after controlling for differences between students increasing and decreasing their homework effort.
•    Associations are found for self-reported and parent-reported personality.

Abstract: Research has shown that sustained homework effort enhances academic performance and that students’ conscientiousness is a powerful predictor of students’ homework effort. But does homework—as homework proponents claim—in turn also influence the development of conscientiousness over time? In the present study, we examined whether students’ homework effort in two subjects (i.e., mathematics and language) was associated with inter-individual differences in students’ development of conscientiousness in the early years of adolescence. Bivariate change models with a total of N = 2,760 students revealed that homework effort and conscientiousness were systematically related over time (Grade 5 to Grade 8). Most importantly, students who invested more effort in their homework showed more positive development in conscientiousness.

Keywords: conscientiousness; academic performance; homework effort; self-report; parent report; personality development