Helping Students Turn up for Class: Does Personality Moderate the Effectiveness of an Implementation Intention Intervention?

Class attendance is an important determinant of academic success yet a significant proportion of students miss class. The present study investigated the deliberative and personality correlates of class attendance alongside an implementation intention intervention that asked students to specify when, where, and how they would attend class. Class attendance was found to be a function of conscientiousness (more conscientious students were more likely to attend), openness to experience (more open students were less likely to attend), goal intentions (more motivated students were more likely to attend), and the implementation intention intervention (students who formed specific plans about when, where, and how to attend were more likely to attend). Furthermore, there was a significant interaction between the implementation intention intervention and conscientiousness; the intervention had a greater impact on class attendance for low or moderately conscientious students than for highly conscientious students. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.