A comparative study of personality preference types on the Myers-Briggs type indicator and violations of student conduct codes at the University of Maine at Orono

Abstract

Student discipline has always been a part of the university environment. The philosophy of student discipline has gone from an In loco parentis to a more individualistic, self-disciplined approach. In order to achieve a more self-disciplined approach, a university must take a closer look at individual students and their personalities, in terms of student behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student personality preferences of ES, EN, IS and IN on the MBTI with violations of student conduct codes. The random sample consisted of one hundred and fifty freshmen students from the University of Maine at Orono (UMO), who violated student conduct codes during the 1983-84 academic year. Student incident reports were used to determine the type of violation(s) that occurred. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was used to assess personality preference types of extraversion-introversion and sensing-intuition. The statistical procedure of Chi-square was used to analyze the data. In order to determine the relationship between type and violations, each type was compared to all five conduct code violations. Twenty hypotheses were developed and tested at a .05 level of significance. Results indicated that there was no statistical significance between ES, EN, IS and IN personality types and student conduct code violations. However, additional research indicated that the sampled population had a high percentage of feeling-perceptive (FP) students. Of those FPs, the majority of them were ENFP followed by ESFP.