PERSONALITY AND PROBLEM-SOLVING NEXUS: EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FIVE FACTOR MODEL OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITY AMONG SECONDARY STAGE STUDENTS

Background: Personality traits are the significant factors influencing the problem-solving ability among the students. The Five-factor model (FFM) of personality includes Openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and the last neuroticism acronymed as OCEAN, also known as Personality’s big five factors. Objectives: The objectives were to find the relationship among the big five factors of personality and problem-solving ability among secondary stage students. Methodology: The study adopted a descriptive survey method with a quantitative approach. The study consists of 200 students of 9th class of secondary stage school of Agra, U.P. Data were collected using two standardised two tools of Five Personality Traits Inventory (FPTI-MKS) and Problem-Solving Ability Test (PSAT-D). The data were analysed by calculating mean, standard deviation (SD) and Pearson correlation coefficient. Result: The study found that the big five factors of personality as openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness were positively correlated with problem solving ability and neuroticism is negatively correlated with the problem-solving ability of secondary stage students.