Is Pacific Ethnicity Associated to Proactivity: An Investigation in Higher Education

The social, emotional, economic and cultural characteristics of students have emerged in literature showing their importance in student learning and academic achievement. Proactivity has been recently seen to be an essential attribute for success in academic as well as non-academic areas. The research paper considers the possible association between proactivity and ethnicity. Three measures of proactivity namely proactive personality, proactive confidence and proactive behaviour, were used. The Kruskal-Wallis test showed that proactivity levels differed significantly between the ethnic groups - Melanesian, Micronesian, Polynesian and Fiji Indians. The difference was attributed to the Pacific way of life and the unique culture and tradition of the different ethnic groups of the South Pacific.