title: Personality as a moderator of context effects on academic achievement.
abstract: We investigated whether personality moderates group influence of classmates on academic achievement and whether these so-called context effects can be attributed to peer pressure. The sample consisted of 2498 students in their first year of Dutch secondary education. The data were analyzed by a two-level (students within classes) analysis, separately for boys (n=1033, in 92 classes) and girls (n=1465, in 119 classes). For both sexes, we found a context effect on Dutch language achievement but not on mathematics achievement. Emotional Stability appeared a moderator of this context effect but for girls only. The results suggest further that peer pressure is not a likely mechanism of group influence of classmates on academic achievement.
authors.affiliation: Groningen Institute for Educational Research (GION), University of Groningen, The Netherlands. a.a.j.hendriks@rug.nl
authors.forename: A A Jolijn
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Hendriks
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kuyper
authors.forename: Miranda J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lubbers
authors.forename: Margaretha P C
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Van der Werf
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D004522:Educational Status; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D012574:Schools; D012737:Sex Factors; D013334:Students