Teacher Personality and its Relevance to Students

Abstract

This thesis studied the role of teacher Big Five personality domains in student education at secondary and tertiary levels. Chapter 1 provided a literature overview of the significance of teacher personality in education. Chapter 2 examined the relationship between university instructor personality and teacher effectiveness (N = 515 students and their 45 instructors). Results from multilevel regressions showed that instructor personality domains predicted student evaluations of teaching but not performance self-efficacy or academic achievement. Chapter 3 tested similar hypotheses in a secondary school sample of Year 7 to 9 students (N = 2083) and their mathematics and English teachers (N = 75). Results from multilevel regressions showed that teacher personality domains predicted teacher academic support, teacher personal support, and performance self-efficacy across subject areas but again did not predict academic achievement. Findings from Chapters 2 and 3 indicated that student-reports of teacher personality were stronger predictors of teacher effectiveness than teacher self-reports, even when self-reports were contextualised within a work-specific frame of reference. Chapter 4 considered a related issue—the “ideal” teacher personality—using the same student samples in Chapter 2. University students described an ideal instructor as one with extremely high levels of emotional stability and conscientiousness and also higher than average levels on the other domains. Moreover, greater ideal–actual instructor personality similarity predicted student evaluations but not performance self-efficacy or academic achievement. Chapter 5 considered potential applications of teacher personality for selection and professional development and suggested areas for theoretical and empirical future research. Overall, this thesis found abundant evidence that teacher personality is a relevant construct to understand some of the factors that impact students’ educational experiences.