Big Five Personality Traits and Social Network Sites Preferences: The Mediating Role of Academic Achievement in Educational Outcomes of Secondary School Students

Abstract

The relationship between personality traits and social network sites usage has gained considerable attention now a days and the reason behind it is growing prevalence of digital platforms in everyday life. Academic achievement can be define as the extent to which a student has successfully attained their educational goals. Objectives of the study were; 1. To examine the relationship between the Big Five Personality Traits and students’ social media preferences, 2.To find the relationship between Big Five Personality Traits and Students Academic Achievement, 3.To find the relationship between Academic Achievement and usage of Social Network Sites., 4. To analyze the mediating role of academic achievement in the relationship between social network sites usage and Big Five Personality Traits. All 8617 Students of grade 10th of District Attock, (4,868 Boys & 3,749 Girls) at secondary and higher secondary school level in 248 public schools were the population of the study. 816 students were the sample for this study from the population. Proportional Sampling technique was used for sampling. Two different types of self developed research tools were administered for the purpose of achieving the objectives of the study. Big Five Personality Tool consists of 39 items for five different factors which are basically the Big Five personality Traits. Usage of Social Network Sites tool consists of twenty nine different items for five basic and commonly used Social Network Sites. Reliability of the tools was found by using Cronbach’s Alpha. For content validity, both research tools were shared with the experts of field of education while for construct validity, EFA was performed. The findings from the PROCESS procedure (Model 4) offer insights into the relationships between Big Five Personality Traits (BFPTs), Academic Achievement (AA), and Social Network Sites (SNSs). The analysis shows that BFPTs significantly predict Academic Achievement (AA), with a positive coefficient of 1.528 (p < 0.01). The model's R-squared value of 0.528 indicates that 52.81% of the variance in academic achievement can be explained by BFPTs. This relationship suggests that students' personality traits are strongly related to their academic performance. Hence, it is recommended that, Interventions should focus on improving both academic achievement and personality traits to help students manage their social media usage effectively.