Investigation of the Relationship between Personality Traits and Self-Direction Strategy (Case Study: Isfahan University's students)

Self-direction is a process by which people direct and motivate themselves to behave and perform in a desirable way. Self-direction has been used successfully in many fields so far. It seems that personality traits of individuals have a relationship with self-direction skill. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between Big Five Personality Factors (extroversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism) and self-direction among students of Isfahan University.
207 students were selected by stratified random sampling. The research tools were Houghton and Neck's self-leadership questionnaire and John et al, Big Five Personality Model Questionnaire. Data were analyzed by correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis.
Results showed that there's no significant relationship between self-direction and extroversion, but there's a significant relationship between self-direction and agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis showed that predictor variables (personality traits) could predict the changes of the criterion variable (self-direction) significantly.
Discussion and The results of the study could have an important role in literature of self-direction and personality. The obtaining results can be used in planning for self-direction skill training.