Influence of Personality Traits on English Language Performance of Secondary School Students in Oyo

The study examined the influence of personality traits on English Language performance of secondary school students in Oyo Town, Oyo State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was employed in the study. The population of the study comprised all senior secondary school three (SSS 3) in Oyo. Specifically, the study targeted Senior Secondary School three (SSS 3) students from 10 secondary schools in Oyo Town. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 300 respondents from the randomly selected secondary schools in the study area. Adapted questionnaire from John and Srisava (1999) was used to determine the Personality Traits of the sampled respondents and Academic Performance Test extracted from 2017/2018 WASSCE English Language past questions was used to determine the academic performance of the students. The reliability of the instrument was ascertained using Cronbach Alpha. The personality traits scale yielded reliability coefficient values of 0.79. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of percentage and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The findings of the study revealed that the personality trait that is predominant among the students was openness to experience and followed by extraversion personality traits. The second finding revealed that the level of academic performance of secondary school students in English Language in Oyo town was low. It was recommended among others that teachers, parents and students should be educated on the knowledge of individual differences of which personality trait plays a major role on how one react to issues and academic activities and performance in school.