Professional personality characteristics of student teachers

Problem: Personality dispositions of student teachers are often discussed as an import predictor of their effective teaching, classroom management, or coping with challenging school situations. The aim of this study is to investigate professional personality characteristics of student teachers using Bochum personality inventory and to discuss the results in comparison with general population results and in the context of teacher training. Method: The data were obtained from 495 student teachers from three different faculties of education in Slovakia (Mage = 22.24; 11% of participants were male). They were enrolled in the teacher training for both primary and secondary education. The Bochum personality inventory is a self-report inventory consisting of 196 items divided into 14 dimensions (including: Achievement motivation, Power motivation, Leadership motivation, Conscientiousness, Flexibility, Action orientation, Social sensitivity, Relationship orientation, Sociability, Team orientation, Assertiveness, Emotional stability, Resilience, and Self-confidence). In this sample the inventory achieved satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach‘s alpha and McDonald‘s omega ranging from .60 to .85). As far as the data were normally distributed, Welch‘s t-test and Pearson correlations were used to analyse the data. Results: No significant differences were found between teacher students who chose teaching as their first choice and those who opted for teaching as a substitute choice. Between the groups of student teachers for primary and secondary education, the differences were significant in the dimension of Action orientation and Teamwork with small size effect. Significant differences were found also between male and female student teachers. Female student teachers scored higher in Conscientiousness and Action orientation. Male student teachers had significantly higher scores in Assertiveness, Emotional stability and Self-confidence. Compared to Slovak standardisation sample student teachers scored higher in Social Sensitivity (d = .278). Lower scores were found in Self-confidence (d = .207), Flexibility (d = .230), Emotional Stability (d = .340) and Resilience (d = .472). Discussion and conclusion: The student teacher sample profiles differ from the Slovak standardization sample only with small size effect in five dimensions. The differences can be interpreted also in the context of sample specifications such as age and gender. As student teachers achieved lower scores in the area of psychological constitution, especially in the dimension of Resilience, further training possibilities are discussed. Another question is whether personality profiles based on professional characteristics can be used as a tool of teacher candidates’ selection or as a tool for career counselling, mentoring and training management for student and novice teachers.