Main Page Abstracts: The Prime Importance of the Teacher’s Personality: What is Everybody talking about?

The Prime Importance of the Teacher’s Personality: What is Everybody talking about?

Author(s):
Jessika Bertram
(presenting / submitting)
Sabine Gruehn
(presenting)
Sylvia Rahn

Conference:
ECER 2014

Network:
09. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Format:
Paper

Session Information
09 SES 06 C, Competencies and Attitudes of Teachers (Part 2)

Paper Session: continued from 09 SES 05 C

Time:
2014-09-03
15:30-17:00

Room:
B009 Anfiteatro

Chair:
Åse Hansson

Contribution
Not at least the ‘Hattie-study’ re-emphasizes the relevance of the teacher’s person to students’ learning effects (cf. Hattie 2009). Its meta-
analysis states that the change of the teacher’s point of view into a perspective that is adopting the students’ points of view is an
elementary step in schooling. This finding corresponds with theoretical approaches of the symbolic interactionism resp. the
ethnomethodology considering the teacher’s person as a relevant factor within learning processes and in relation to the students. Within
this theoretical framework the teacher is up to mediate what students are able to perceive. But perspectives are rarely to define within
cultural-heterogeneous classes as they usually are in schools, with the result that we don’t know much about the fit between teachers’
supply and students’ use (cf. Lüders 2011; Boyle, Charles 2011; Lipowsky 2010). Thus, empirical results of longitudinal surveys of teacher
trainees proved a correlation between personality traits and learning receptivity (Mayr 2006). But what is identified when identifying the
person of the teacher as a relevant one? Studies on this topic mostly prove the personality of teachers by self-reported assessments (e.g.
Feldmann 1986). In this research area the Big Five-model seems to be an established approach to inspect personality on specific traits as it
is proved to work well over heterogeneous Kulturkreise as well as to both self- and external-assessments (Asendorpf, Neyer 2012; Mayr
2011). The data found about the perception and assessments of the teachers’ personality by their students are quite rare and results quite
vague to the topic of the presented research project as they focus at most on general teaching assessments (cf. Clayson, Sheffet 2006,
Hattie 2009).

Furthermore, former studies gathering teaching quality by multi perspective data (cf. Clausen 2002; Helmke, Schneider, Weinert 1986;
Helmke 2012) mainly used assessments of students at the junior high school (grades 6 resp. 8) and in addition those assessments
exclusively were acquired from Math classes. Moreover, there are well-known drawbacks concerning especially the use of young students’
feedbacks as an evaluation-instrument on teaching quality because of its potential to be undifferentiated and biased. Concerning elder
students it still seems to be an outstanding issue how far the students’ perception of teachers’ personality does affect the students’
feedback on different teaching characteristics.

In association, the following research questions of our presented study arise:

1. Do students’ perceptions of teachers’ personality traits (along the Big Five-model) affect students’ assessments of teaching
characteristics?

2. Are there essential differences in students’ perceptions of teachers’ personality traits and instructional features between various
subjects and/or classes/schools according to students’ composition or their interests?

The design of the study focusses the relevance of considering effects on students’ feedbacks in the empirical lesson research to give a vast
view on the topic as possible. It is qualified to prove effects of the students’ perception of the teachers’ personality (along the Big Five-
dimensions) to the students’ feedback on teaching characteristics (along established scales of teaching quality research as well as overall
assessments of the teachers’ person and the teaching). By comparing the assessments of teaching characteristics and the perception of
personality traits in different subjects, effects that are potentially biasing students’ feedbacks (e.g. the interest on the subject) are
extracted. The results might extend the empirical base of research on this topic which is generally essential to foster lesson development
by a better understanding of students learning receptivity. Furthermore they might give hints to make instruments of teaching evaluations
more adaptive.

Method
To specify some of the outstanding aspects on this research topic as well as considering others, the students’ feedbacks potentially biasing
factors the presented research project conducted a survey of juniors (N=2212) and 168 of their teachers of 49 schools. The project is
promoted by the German Research Association (DFG). The surveyed students and teachers learn and teach at comprehensive and
vocational secondary schools all over NW (North Rhine-Westphalia). The survey was carried out by standardized questionnaires and
referred to the different subjects including German, Math and at the vocational schools to the profiling one. 14% of the selected 39
vocational secondary schools (N=1532) feature an educational focus, 12% a technical and 40% a commercial focus. On design elder
students were surveyed to get as differentiated feedbacks as possible. To examine the personality traits of the teachers a well-tested short
scale (BFI-S, which is developed for its use within the SOEP) based on the Big Five-model (NEO-PI-R) was applied. Teaching quality was
surveyed by both students’ and teachers’ ratings on instructional characteristics including established scales from the empirical research
on teaching effectiveness. The applied scales differ between the students’ and the teachers’ questionnaires but they represent similar
dimensions, which are: classroom management, differentiation, elements of open and of cooperative learning settings. In addition to it the
students were asked to give an overall assessment regarding their satisfaction with the teachers and their instructional features. The
teachers were asked to rate the satisfaction of the students with their teaching resp. with them as their teacher. Furthermore conventional
basic data were collected.

Expected Outcomes
First correlation analyses indicate that from different points of view teaching characteristics are perceived variously: whereas the teachers
seem to rate a higher ‘differentiation’ within their lessons, the students show by tendency more positive appraisals of the characteristic of
classroom management ‘discipline’. With regard to various subjects differences in the students’ feedback on the various teaching
characteristics between the subjects German and Math are supposed as well as in the students’ perception of personality traits of the
respective teachers. By now it is not already proved how far the perception of the teachers’ personality traits may affect the assessments
of teaching characteristics and if there are differences between the subjects among the teachers’ assessments or between different
teaching characteristics. The factorial analyses suggest differences in the perception as well as in the differentiation of the teachers’
personality traits between self-reported assessments of the teachers and the external assessments of their students along the Big Five-
traits. By tendency it might be observed a differentiated figure of the Big Five-traits by the teachers themselves in comparison to the
students. As the results potentially extract biasing effects of students’ feedbacks they are to be discussed in terms of their
operationalization to further developments of feedback instruments.

References
Asendorpf, Neyer (2012). Psychologie der Persönlichkeit. Berlin: Springer. Boyle, B., Charles, M. (2011). Education in a multicultural
environment: equity issues in teaching and learning in the school systems in England. In: International Studies in Sociology of Education
(21) 4, 299-315. Clausen, M. (2002). Unterrichtsqualität - eine Frage der Perspektive? Münster: Waxmann. Clayson, D. E., Sheffet, M. J.
(2006). Personality and the Student Evaluation of Teaching. In: Journal of Marketing Education (28) 149, 149-160. Feldmann, K. A. (1986).
The perceived instructional effectiveness of college teachers as related to their personality and attitudinal characteristics: A Review and
Synthesis. In: Research in Higher Education (24) 2, 139-213. Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses
Relating to Achievement. London/New York: Routledge. Helmke, A. (2012). Unterrichtsqualität und Lehrerprofessionalität. Diagnose,
Evaluation und Verbesserung des Unterrichts. Seelze: Klett-Kallmeyer. Helmke, A., Schneider, W. & Weinert, F.-E. (1986). Quality of
instruction and classroom learning outcomes: The German contribution to the IEA classroom environment study. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 2(1), 1-18. Lipowsky, F. (2010). Lernen im Beruf. Empirische Befunde zur Wirksamkeit von Lehrerfortbildung. In: Müller, F. H. et
al. (Eds.) (2010). Lehrerinnen und Lehrer lernen. Konzepte und Befunde zur Lehrerfortbildung. Münster: Waxmann. 51-70. Lüders, M.
(2011). Forschung zur Lehrer-Schüler-Interaktion/Unterrichtskommunikation. In: Terhart, E., Bennewitz, H., Rothland, M. (Eds.) (2011).
Handbuch der Forschung zum Lehrerberuf. Münster/New York/München/Berlin: Waxmann. 644-667. Mayr, J. (2011). Der
Persönlichkeitsansatz in der Lehrerforschung. In: Terhart, E., Bennewitz, H., Rothland, M. (Eds.) (2011). Handbuch der Forschung zum
Lehrerberuf. Münster: Waxmann. 125-149.
Author Information
Jessika Bertram (presenting / submitting)
University of Munster (WWU)

School and Teaching Research

Münster

Sabine Gruehn (presenting)

University of Muenster

Institute for educational science

Muenster

Sylvia Rahn
University of Paderborn, Germany

Programme by Network 2019

00. Central Events (Keynotes, EERA-Panel, EERJ Round Table, Invited Sessions)

Network 1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Network 2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)

Network 3. Curriculum Innovation

Network 4. Inclusive Education

Network 5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Network 6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

Network 7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Network 8. Research on Health Education

Network 9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Network 10. Teacher Education Research

Network 11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance

Network 12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network

Network 13. Philosophy of Education

Network 14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Network 15. Research Partnerships in Education

Network 16. ICT in Education and Training

Network 17. Histories of Education

Network 18. Research in Sport Pedagogy

Network 19. Ethnography

Network 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments

Network 22. Research in Higher Education

Network 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Network 24. Mathematics Education Research

Network 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education

Network 26. Educational Leadership

Network 27. Didactics – Learning and Teaching

Network 28. Sociologies of Education

Network 29. Reserach on Arts Education

Network 30. Research on Environmental und Sustainability Education

Network 31. Research on Language and Education (LEd)

Network 32. Organizational Education

Network 33. Gender and Education

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