The Role of Affection toward School, Personality Traits and Academic Performance in Differentiating between Self-disciplined Students and those with Disciplinary Problems

The aim of the present research was to determine the role of affection toward school, personality traits and academic performance in differentiating between self disciplined students and those with disciplinary problems. The research sample included 420 second and third grade high school students in the academic year 1391-1392 in Tabriz who were selected by multi-stage cluster and purposeful sampling methods. To choose the self-disciplined and those with disciplinary problem, two cut-off scores were set for the students’ discipline scores. In this research, a questionnaire of measuring attitude toward school was used for measuring the students’ academic affection and a questionnaire of five main factors of neo personality was applied for assessing the personality traits of the participation. Also, the first semester averages were used by as an index of academic performance. The obtained data were analyzed statistical methods of logistic regression and discriminate function analysis. The results of logistic regression indicate that the elements’ averages, self-regulation and attitude toward school and the variable of being receptive, respectively and positively, predict the group membership of students with disciplinary problems. The discriminate function analysis results also showed that self-regulation, attitude toward school, academic performance and attitude toward teacher and class and finally being pleasing have significant potential in differentiating between two groups of disciplined students and those with disciply problems. The results also indicate that 75/3 percent of the individuals in both groups were classified properly according to these variables. The implications of the findings have been discussed in the paper.