They first completed tests of ability, and then measures of personality and learning approaches. The order of tests GSK-3 activity was the same across universities. Students took voluntarily part in the study or in exchange for course credit; all participants were debriefed after the testing. The analyses were conducted using SPSS 19 and AMOS 19. For the Big Five, unit-weighted composite scores were computed, adjusted for the number

of items. For TIE, the first unrotated component was retained as regression score (cf. Goff & Ackerman, 1992). After computing correlations, a structural equation model was fitted to examine the variables’ inter-relations. From the learning motive and strategy scales, a respective latent factor was

extracted for each learning approach. The Big Five, TIE and intelligence were modeled as exogenous variables with direct paths to each of the latent learning approaches. Learning approaches were allowed to freely correlate, and so were all independent variables. The model was fitted to two independent sub-samples (N = 281 and N = 308), as well as the overall sample to compare estimates and confirm model solutions. Full information maximum likelihood estimation was employed to avoid omission of cases with missing data ( Arbuckle, 1996). Table 1 reports the descriptive, coefficient alpha values and correlations for all study variables. selleckchem Intelligence was significantly and negatively associated with surface and achieving strategy with coefficients of r = −.13 and r = −.12, respectively (p < .01, in all cases here and below). No other significant associations of intelligence with learning strategies or motives were observed. Learning approaches correlated significantly mafosfamide with personality: Conscientiousness was positively associated with deep and achieving strategy (r = .16 and r = .23, respectively), and with achieving motive (r = .17), while Openness was negatively related to surface strategy (r = −.18). There were no other significant correlations between learning approaches

and the Big Five. TIE was significantly correlated with intelligence and all motives and strategies with coefficients ranging from −.36 (with surface strategy) to .56 (deep motive); overall, TIE showed the greatest overlap with learning approaches. Models fitted to the subsamples and the overall sample did not differ notably. Estimates from the full sample model are reported, which proved an adequate fit to the data (χ2 (df = 27) = 75.69; CFI = .967; TLI = .890; RMSEA .056; Confidence Interval of 90% from .041 to .071). TIE was significantly associated with all learning approaches: negatively with surface learning, and positively with deep and achieving learning with path parameters of −.47, .71 and .24, respectively (Fig. 1). Intelligence was negatively, significantly related to deep learning with a path parameter of −.10, and had no other meaningful associations.