The Personality of a Teacher
|Above copied from ThoughtCo.|
A well-known model in psychology divides personality into five big traits:
- Openness : adventurous, curious, inventive
- Conscientiousness : organized, disciplined, reliable
- Extraversion : outgoing, energetic, assertive
- Agreeableness : friendly, compassionate, cooperative
- Neuroticism : nervous, anxious, emotionally unstable
Lisa Kim et al. in their study have looked at 20 schools, which included more than 2000 students, and about 75 math and reading teachers across Australia, to draw relationships between the personality of a teacher and the following student outcomes: teacher academic support, teacher personal support, personal self-efficacy, and grades.
Their conclusions are as follows:
- A teacher's conscientiousness is important for a student's belief that a teacher can support him or her academically.
- A teacher's agreeableness is important for a student's belief that a teacher can support him or her personally
- A teacher's neuroticity negatively correlates with a student's sense of self-efficacy
- A teacher's personality is not correlated with students' academic achievement