Publication:

The relationship between personality type and the academic achievement of medical students in a Saudi medical school

Background The significance of understanding one’s individual personality is crucial to performance in study and at work and to one’s communication with others. This study aims to evaluate the distribution of personality types amongst medical students and to study the relationship between each personality type and academic achievement.

Methods This cross-sectional study was used. Total of 414 medical students from king Abdelaziz university in Jeddah participated. Data was collected by using validated DiSC assessment questionnaire. Data were entered by electronic questionnaire. A chi-square test was used to analyze the data.

Results A total of 148 (36%) students belonged to C personality type. A total of 102 (24%) belonged to D type. The S type was found dominant amongst 127 (31%) students. Finally, 37 (9%) of the students conformed to the I type. A chi-square test was conducted to assess the relationship between academic achievement and DiSC assessment which revealed no significance P value (0.08).

Conclusions The highest percentage of medical students conformed to the C personality type, whilst the lowest percentage showed a tendency toward the I personality type. These results would be helpful for the undergraduate students or high school graduate in which some of them may have the belief that only certain kind of personalities would fit appropriate in the medical field or succeed. We recommend for further studies to be carried out using the DiSC model on students from other specialty rather than medical filed, as engineering, to see their personality type. This may help students in freshman year to choose a specialty that suit their personality type.