Abstract
Aim: to investigate the possible correlation between personality traits and higher grade point average GPA among dental students at a Saudi dental college. Materials and methods: Dental students and interns at College of Dentistry, "King Saud Bin Abdulaziz" University for Health Sciences were asked to participate in the study. Method of assessment: an online 50-question Five Factor Model Test conducted by a specialized company in the field of human resources (www.truity.com), performed using I-Pad devices. The GPA was collected by each student and plotted against each of the five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism). Results and discussion: The final study sample consisted of 159 participants representing all levels in the college of dentistry. The study showed that the most dominant personality trait is agreeableness, while high conscientiousness was the least dominant personality trait found among both males (17.8%) and females (21.1%). When looking into the GPA, most of the females were above 4.5 and only 1.7% of them were below 4. However, among males only 11.1% had a GPA above 4.5, while 46.7% had a GPA below 4. Openness was found as significantly correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness, whereas agreeableness was found as significantly associated with neuroticism. However, they are inversely related. There was a significant inverse correlation between GPA and agreeable female students. Also, a significant relation between extravert male students and conscientiousness was observed. Conclusions: The more open a person is, the more agreeable and conscientious he/ she is. Female students registered higher GPA than male students.