Personality Questionnaires as a Basis for Improvement of University Courses in Applied Computer Science and Informatics

Abstract

In this paper, we lay the foundation for an adaptation of the teaching process to the personality traits and academic performance of the university students enrolled in applied computer science and informatics (ACSI). We discuss how such an adaptation could be supported by an analytical software solution and present the initial version of this solution. In the form of a case study, we discuss the scores from a personality questionnaire that was administered to a group of university students enrolled in an introductory programming course at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. During a non-mandatory workshop on programming, the participants completed the 48-item short-scale Eysenck Personality Questionnaire–Revised (EPQ– R). By using various exploratory and analytical techniques, we inspect the student EPQ–R scores and elaborate on the specificities of the participating student group. As part of our efforts to understand the broader relevance of different student personality traits in an academic environment, we also discuss how the EPQ–R scores of students could provide information valuable to the process of improving student learning and performance in university courses in ACSI.