摘要：This research explores the impact of students’ ability to adjust to school environment at a
residential accelerated upper-level high school for math and science. Students in their junior and
senior years were given the DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness)
behavioral instrument and tracked over a two year period. The DISC has been used in job
profiling to help companies make better hiring decisions such that employee retention and job
success are maximized. The DISC identifies a person’s adapted behaviors based on what he or
she believes about the environment, and also identifies the person’s natural or preferred
behaviors. Stress from the environment can be measured by reviewing the difference between
the adapted and natural behaviors. Dissimilarity between the adapted and natural behavioral
styles would indicate more stress related to the environment. The individual difference scores
for the four DISC components were added to create a new variable, TotalD. The study used
multiple regression analysis to assess the impact of TotalD scores on the outgoing GPA of the
student. Results indicate that the greater the TotalD score, the lower the outgoing GPA. Further
analysis showed via t-tests that students with an outgoing GPA of 3.60 or higher were most
affected by this TotalD score. This research illustrates that the DISC can be used with relatively
young subjects to determine how well they are adjusting to the environment. Findings can also
be used to help improve retention at the institution and better predict those who may be most at
risk for attrition.
