Zan Gao, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory in the School of Kinesiology, has published an article with colleagues, “Path associations between trait personality, enjoyment, and effort by gender in high school physical education,” in the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. The study investigated a proposed path model wherein personality and effort relate indirectly through enjoyment by gender in 316 students in 9th- and 10th-grade physical education. Surveys were completed that assessed students’ effort, enjoyment, and HEXACO trait personality (honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience).

In both boys and girls, the data fit the proposed paths with lower openness to experience and higher extraversion predicting enjoyment and effort via enjoyment. In boys, personality also predicted effort whereas honesty-humility predicted enjoyment. Girls’ agreeableness showed a higher predictive effect on effort through enjoyment compared to that of boys.