A SHORT FORM OF THE KEIRSEY TEMPERAMENT SORTER TO PREDICT SUCCESS IN AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNTING COURSE

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1 A SHORT FORM OF THE KEIRSEY TEMPERAMENT SORTER TO PREDICT SUCCESS IN AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNTING COURSE William E. Bealing, Jr., Bloomsburg University, , Charles J. Russo, Bloomsburg University, , A. Blair Staley, Bloomsburg University, , Richard L. Baker, Bloomsburg University, , ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between specific questions in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter personality preferences test and performance in an entry level accounting course. It develops a structural equation model linking specific questions in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter personality preferences test to grades obtained by majors in business disciplines other than accounting who were enrolled in an introductory accounting course at one mid-sized, public university. The results demonstrate that six (6) questions in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter are significantly related to prediction of success in the introductory accounting course. Specifically, questions that indicated a sensing personality preference for how a student gathers information proved to be significantly related to the grade that an individual attained in the introductory accounting course. Professors who teach the introductory accounting course may elect to take a few minutes to administer these six questions at the beginning of their first class period. Students who, through their responses to these six questions, demonstrate a low aptitude for accounting could then be advised that accounting may not come easily for them and then be counseled as to what steps they may need to take in order to succeed in the course. INTRODUCTION Historically, specific aptitudes demonstrated by certain individuals have been ascribed to their unique personality types. For instance, most individuals would accept the premise that certain members of society possess a unique aptitude for music. Previous work by Jackson and Lawty-Jones [7] and Honey and Mumford [6] have linked learning styles to a student s personality, although Loo [10] pointed out that learning styles and personality are not actually the same constructs. While a significant body of research exists concerning the relationship of student learning styles to academic performance, far less has been written about the relationship between student personality type and classroom performance. This study investigates the premise that specific questions in a personality test predict academic performance in a specific academic discipline: accounting. BACKGROUND The theory that individuals exhibit specific personality types was introduced by Carl Gustav Jung in his book Psychological Types in In his book, Jung documented a set of typical

2 differences in the human psyche that he termed "introverted" and "extroverted." He posited that extroverted individuals prefer the outer world of people and things while introverted individuals prefer the inner world of ideas and concepts. Jung also posited that psychological types were related to certain basic psychological functions which he termed thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition [16]. Jung s descriptions of introversion and extroversion represent the extremes of human behavior. Each individual will actually display a tendency to lean more in the direction of introversion or extroversion but possess both qualities to some degree. In actuality, each individual possesses all of the attributes of sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition, but demonstrates a predisposition to rely on some attributes more than others. The individual's predisposition toward individual attributes determines their specific personality type. In 1936, Jung published a related paper that he described as an appendix to his original book, Psychological Types. In that paper, he described in greater detail his four basic psychological types: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. He proposed that sensation establishes that something exists, thinking establishes what it means, feeling attaches a value to it, and intuition determines when it comes and whether it will last [16]. It has been postulated that individuals perceive their environment through either a sensing or an intuitive paradigm [15]. Sensing types tend to organize input sequentially, in a step-by-step process. Conversely, intuitive types start with a top down view of broad concepts. They then take these abstract concepts and organize them as a more workable general framework. Intuitive types also tend to dislike activities that are detail oriented. On the other hand, an individual's decision making processes are dominated by either thinking or feeling. Those individuals who conform to the thinking type definition tend to use a logical, objective decision process, while those who resemble the feeling type are inclined to use a valuebased or subjective process which puts more emphasis on how the decision will impact others [15]. Finally, an individual's attitude toward their external environment and the structure of their everyday living is dominated by judging or perceiving. Those individuals who conform to the judging-type definition prefer to plan ahead and prefer closure and the settling of things. Those individuals who conform to the perceiving-type definition prefer to postpone decisions and keep things open-ended. Jung also drew some notable caveats regarding psychological typing. First, the basic typologies of introversion, extroversion, sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition were never intended to encompass all aspects of human personality. Furthermore, the purpose of psychological typing is not to classify people into neat, restrictive categories. He maintained that simply categorizing individuals, in it's self, would be a meaningless exercise. Jung believed that psychological typing merely provided the methodology for conducting empirical research by providing points of view and guidelines that reduce the plethora of individual personality types down to a manageable array. In addition, psychological typing may aid us in understanding the broad differences in personality and personal preferences that occur among individuals [16].

3 HYPOTHESIS Hypotheses: H1 Specific questions in a personality test do not predict performance in an introductory accounting course. THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT Research into the area of learning styles has been ongoing for many years. This has resulted in the development of over twenty different currently available models [4] [14] [5]. Much of the previous research into the link between personality type and accounting has been based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This is a formal preferences based survey instrument consisting of over 120 questions designed to access an individual's personality preferences in four primary areas: introvert/extrovert, sensing/intuitive, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. In theory, every individual has a predisposed preference to one of each of the above pairs. Thus, there is a potential of sixteen (four squared) individual personality types and, theoretically, each individual can be categorized as one of those types. Wheeler [17] found 16 published accounting research articles using the MBTI instrument. Of the 16 articles, four examined the relationship between academic performance of accounting students and their indicated MBTI personality type. Specifically, Ott, et al. [13] found that individuals categorized as sensing (S) and thinking (T) performed better, as measured by course grades, in courses using the lecture method. Utilizing the MBTI instrument, Nourayi and Cherry [11] examined the relationship between the performance of several students in seven different accounting courses and their individual personality preferences. The only significant relationship found was that students categorized as sensing (S) outperformed intuitive (I) students in three (Tax, Auditing and Intermediate II) of the seven courses analyzed in their study. While not examining the linkage between personality type and course grade, Landry et al. [9] focused on computer usage and the MBTI personality of accounting students. They found that the STJ-preference (sensing, thinking, judging) personality type was over represented, comprising 42% of their entire sample, with ISTJ (introverted STJ's) comprising 17% and ESTJ (extroverted STJ's) comprising 25% respectively. Oswick and Barber [12] examined the MBTI personality preferences of undergraduate nonaccounting majors and contrasted the individual findings to each student s performance in an introductory accounting course, as measured by course grades. They found that there were no statistically significant correlations between indicated personality preference and performance. Keirsey and Bates developed their own independent personality preferences test utilizing the same 16 personality types as the MBTI instrument. Since its inception, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (KTS) has grown to become the most widely used personality inventory measuring tool in the world, surpassing even the MBTI instrument [8].

4 The authors have chosen to use the KTS instrument in their research for several reasons. First, the 16 resulting personality classifications used by the KTS instrument correspond directly to those of the MBTI instrument that had been used in the previous research conducted in the field. Second, it can be administered and scored by the researchers in approximately twenty minutes without having to send the instrument off site. In addition, the authors have complete access to the individuals' responses to each question, not just their overall personality type score. This has proved to be invaluable in facilitating a far more detailed analysis of the results. Finally, the cost of administering the MBTI instrument to several hundred students proved to be prohibitive while the cost of administering the KTS instrument fell within the researchers budget constraints. The authors' exploratory research, as described in this paper, matched that of Nourayi and Cherry [11] and revealed that only the sensing (S) and intuitive (I) dimensions were significant (at the 10 % level) with respect to success in the introductory accounting course. Accordingly, the authors' selected the twenty questions in the KTS instrument that measure sensing (S) or intuitive (I) preferences as possible indicators of success in the introductory accounting course. METHODOLOGY The authors administered the KTS instrument to 79 business majors enrolled in the basic financial accounting course for non-accounting majors. To motivate the students to conscientiously complete the survey, it was administered during a normal class period. In addition, the students were informed that they could receive access to their individual personality profiles, as well as a copy of a common careers list for each personality type, simply by contacting the faculty member who administered the survey instrument. They were also told to leave the questionnaire blank if they chose not to participate. No blank forms were received. The data was coded centered on zero so that the primary area of interest sensing/intuitive could be measured with one variable. In compliance with university policy, the research was pre-approved by the University s Institutional Review Board and the students were informed that, although their individual results would remain strictly confidential, aggregated research results would be included in various future research findings made public by the authors. RESULTS Because the authors had access to the responses provided by each individual who had completed the KTS instrument, it was possible to determine the relative strength of each personality preference recorded by the individual students. In addition, it was possible to access university records to determine the individual grade earned by each student in their introductory accounting course. Given the availability of such detailed information, it was decided that the possible correlation between the strength of a student's specific personality preferences and the letter grade they received in their introductory accounting course could be examined. Primary Analysis The model was tested with latent variable structural equation analysis using the AMOS [1] computer program. This type of analysis has been used by other researchers to investigate

5 Keirsey-type personality measures [3]. This analysis combined the proposed structural model specifying relationships between the latent variable of interest with a measurement model that specifies relationships between the latent variable and the observed variables (i.e., individual questionnaire items) used to measure them. This approach adjusts the coefficients of the paths between the variables of interest in the structural model for the effects of random measurement error. Only six questions were found to be significant: They were the third, sixth, ninth, 12 th, 17 th, and 19 th questions that comprise the Sensing/Intuitive dimension of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. These questions correspond to question numbers 9, 17, 30, 38, 58 and 65 of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter Instrument itself [8, pp. 4-9]. They are: 9. Are you more (a)sensible than ideational (b) ideational than sensible 17. Do you like writers who (a) say what they mean (b) use metaphors and symbolism 30. Common sense is (a) usually reliable (b) frequently questionable 38. Do you speak more in (a) particulars than generalities (b) generalities than particulars 58. Do you prize in yourself (a) a strong hold on reality (b) a vivid imagination 65. In stories do you prefer (a) action and adventure (b) fantasy and heroism [Response (a) for each of the above questions indicates a sensing preference while response (b) indicates an intuitive preference.] As is perhaps not surprising, given the large number of factors that were not significant, the model as a whole did not have acceptable fit, and the path between the sensing (S) or intuitive (I) preference and success in the introductory accounting course was not significant. Chi-square and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) were used to assess the overall fit of the model to the data. Chi-square (X 2 [21] = , p =.056) of the proposed model was not significant. Because chi-square is really a badness of fit measure, this nonsignificant value suggests that the model had an acceptable fit to the data. The RMSEA, which was.064, is below the.08 upper bound that Brown and Cudeck [2] suggested represents reasonable model fit. On the whole, the fit indices indicate that the model had an acceptable fit to the data from a practical standpoint. Thus we can reject our original hypothesis and conclude that a specific combination of personality questions can predict success in an introductory accounting course. IMPLICATIONS Researchers have long been interested in the notion that certain students seem to naturally possess the personality traits that make them more suited to success in accounting courses.

6 Presented herein is a short form (six questions) of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter that appears to be casually related to success in accounting courses. Professors who teach the introductory accounting course may elect to take a few minutes to administer these six questions at the beginning of their first class period. Students who, through their responses to these six questions, demonstrate a low aptitude for accounting could be advised that accounting may not come easily for them and then be counseled as to what steps they may need to take in order to succeed in the course. Such counseling may not only help the student succeed, but also may help the instructor succeed since the instructor would be able to identify a student who may need extra attention and assistance as soon as the semester starts. A second application of this short index occurs when prospective students are beginning their college careers. Many times a student will indicate to a department chair or faculty member that they have an interest in becoming an Accounting major but aren t quite sure that it is the major for them. If a concise temperament survey instrument were available, the Chair or faculty member could quickly determine whether the perspective student demonstrates an aptitude for accounting. If so, the student could be counseled that accounting could be a viable career path. If no aptitude for accounting was demonstrated, the perspective student could be cautioned that they may have to work extra hard in order to succeed. Hence, the short temperament survey would be another tool at the disposal of anyone who is advising business students about potential career paths. SUMMARY AND FUTURE RESEARCH This paper presents a short form of the KTS temperament sorter that is designed to determine whether students are predisposed to having an "aptitude for accounting" and to achieving success in an introductory accounting course. These questions are numbers 9, 17, 30, 38, 58 and 65 in the Keirsey Temperament Sorter which were presented in their entirety previously [8]. Choosing response (a) to each of these questions would indicate a strong aptitude for accounting coursework while selection of response (b) for all of the questions would indicate an extremely low aptitude for accounting related topics. To lend credence to this finding, the research needs to be replicated utilizing larger numbers of students enrolled in introductory accounting courses at several different universities of diverse sizes as well as within business colleges with varying reputations regarding the quality and rigor of their programs. Finally, if a statistically significant number of observations could be amassed, relationships between all 70 KTS questions and performance in accounting courses should be examined. References available upon request from Richard L Baker.