Influence of cognitive abilities, personality characteristics and social status on pupils’ success in mathematics

Objectives: The study was conducted in order to apply adequate methodological procedures to determine the influence of cognitive abilities, personality characteristics and social status on success in the subject of mathematics. Methods: For the purpose of determining the influence of cognitive abilities, personality characteristics and social status on success in mathematics with the pupils of the School of Chemical technology, we examined about 400 pupils in all four grades of the school. To evaluate the effectiveness of input processors or perceptual reasoning, IT-1 test was chosen. To evaluate the effectiveness of serial processor, or symbolic reasoning, AL-4 test was chosen. To evaluate the effectiveness of parallel processor, or identification of relations and correlates, S-1 test was chosen. To evaluate conative characteristics we chose CON6 measuring instrument by which we evaluated the following conative regulators: activity regulator, organic function regulator , defense reaction regulator, attack reaction regulator, system for coordination of regulative functions, as well as the system for integration of regulative functions. To evaluate social status a model constructed by Saksida was applied. Addendum INST2, questionnaire Boli & Popovic SSMIN was used. To evaluate pupils' success at school, we took school grades. All the data in this study were processed in the Multidisciplinary Research Center of the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education of Priština University by using software system for data processing DRSOFT. To determine the influence of cognitive abilities, personality characteristics and social status on success at mathematics, we used regression analysis. Algorithms and programs implemented within this work are shown in full, while the results of those programs were analyzed. Results: Connection of the total system of predictor variables and success in mathematics amounts to: RO=.44, which explains mutual variability of 19%. The remaining 81% in the explanation of total variability of success at mathematics can be attributed to other abilities and characteristics of the subjects which were not included in this study. Conclusions: From the above, it follows that those pupils of Technology school who achieve better success in mathematics have better symbolic reasoning, better educational and economic status, also have a higher grade in mathematics.