Predicting Collegiate Aviation Students' Performance in Flight Training Through Understanding Their Personality Traits

Abstract

Understanding how the personality traits of flight students correlate with the success of their training in the collegiate aviation environment could be insightful for schools in shaping their programs to serve the full spectrum of students seeking their services. Collegiate flight training is andragogy in action, requiring self-advocating and self-directed learning. As measured by the Big Five personality inventory, certain personality traits lend to self-advocating and self-directed learning. In this study, collegiate flight school students were given the opportunity to complete an online Big Five personality inventory and provide demographic data. Data collected included their academic major and time to achieve aviation milestones (private pilot license, instrument rating, and commercial rating). There were several bivariate correlations, independent sample T-tests, ANOVAs, and simple linear regressions to assess the relationship between a student's personality and aviation training success. The data indicated no statistically significant difference between students who majored in Professional Flight and those who majored in Aviation Management. For students with their private pilot license, there was a statistically significant difference between those who scored high in conscientiousness compared to those without a private pilot license. Finally, the data suggested that students with more agreeable personalities had less time to train than those without.