Psychology Commons^™

Commentary: The Role Of Intrapersonal Psychological Variables In Academic School Learning, Gregory J. Boyle

Gregory J. Boyle

Intellectual abilities may contribute up to 25% of the variance in measures of academic school learning. However, the role of intrapersonal variables other than cognitive ability (personality traits, motivational dynamic factors, transitory emotional states) has usually been considered as fairly trivial. Past research, to the contrary, suggests that under stressful conditions, the relative contribution of such intrapersonal factors may even become predominant in influencing achievement. When analyses are based on change scores rather than single-occasion measures (which include trait contamination variance), the influence of emotional states on learning is shown to be very significant indeed.