DECISION-MAKING STYLES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
This study is framed by the problem of the relationship between competence and success in the context of the contribution of the psychology of decision-making to the improvement of learning, represented by the variable of decision-making of the learner as a skill, on the one hand, and the variable of academic success as an assessment of the learner's achievements, on the other hand. It aims to reveal the learners' ability to make decisions in order to highlight its importance in the education and training process. And to monitor its impact on the quality of learning. Our way to do this is to reveal the nature of the relationship between the ability to make decisions and academic achievement and to identify the most common styles in this ability and the differences in them according to the variables of gender, academic specialization, and educational level. For this reason, a scale consisting of 42 items was built, measuring six dimensions of decision-making. We verified its psychometric properties, and we applied it to a sample of 200 first- and second-year baccalaureate students (males and females) studying in four high schools in Fez, Morocco; their ages range between 16 and 20 years old. The results showed that the students have an above-average level of ability to make decisions, and that they vary in the dominant styles of their choices; no difference was recorded according to the variables gender and school level. On the other hand, the results revealed that there were differences according to the academic specialization variable in favor of those with a scientific specialization. The study also confirmed the existence of a positive correlation between decision-making ability and academic achievement.
Keywords: Decision-Making Ability; Academic Achievement; High School Students; Specialization; School Level.