Conscientiousness predicts doctoral students’ research productivity

The effect of personality on doctoral students’ research productivity is understudied in the literature. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between the personality trait conscientiousness and research productivity among doctoral students. The study is based on a nation-wide data set consisting of 1173 doctoral students in Sweden. Two hypothesis was formulated: (1) Conscientiousness predicts doctoral students research productivity; and (2) Conscientiousness predicts doctoral students co-authoring with the supervisors. It was also asked how the relationship between conscientiousness and research productivity/co-authoring with supervisors differ between research areas. Results supported hypothesis 1 and 2. The main conclusions are that doctoral students with higher conscientiousness co-author more with their supervisors, are more productive during doctoral studies, and that overall the effect of conscientiousness is similar over the research areas.