Personality profiles and workforce readiness: a comparative study of university students in technical and non-technical fields

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 26: Learning for an Unknown Future

July, 2003, 692 pages
Published by
Helen Mathews and Rod McKay
ISBN
0 90 8557 55 8
Abstract 

The mismatch between personality and career choice can actually happen when students are pursuing their academic career. Without proper knowledge of their personality profiles, students might enroll themselves into a programme that is not congruent with their personality. This may lead to inability to adjust academically, and inevitably, results in poor performance. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine personality profiles of technical and non-technical students from one of the universities in Malaysia. One hundred and twenty five students (54 technical, 71 non-technical) participated in the study. The translated version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment (MBTI) was used to examine the personality profiles of the subjects. The MBTI measures eight categories of personality namely: extroversion, introversion, sensing, intuition, thinking, feeling, judging and perceiving. The study was able to identify one major personality type (ESTJ) common to both technical and non-technical group. The technical group displays a mix of extroverted and introverted attitudes while the non-technical group mainly projected the extroverted attitude. Subjects were also found to be lacking in feeling-judgment but were more oriented to the thinking and perceiving categories.

Keywords: personality profiles, workforce readiness, university students