An Investigation On The Personality Traits Of Preschool Teachers

Personality is the sum of one’s psychological characteristics, which are unique, stablepatterns and predispose an individual to act in a specific manner. Everyone has differentpersonality traits, which affect a person’s life and work. The present study aims to explore theindividual differences of personality among preschool teachers via survey, the result of whichmay help to provide reference to talent selection and training for education managementdepartments, and guide preschool teachers’employment and working.In this study, using a cluster sampling method,324preschool teachers of twelve kindergartenfrom seven cities in Shandong province (Jinan, Jining, Weifang, Linyi, Zibo, Taian, andDongying) were selected as samples. This research adopted NEO-Five-factor Inventory(NEO-FFI) developed by the American psychologist P.T.Costa, Jr and R.R.McCrae, and used themethod of questionnaire survey. After removing25invalid cases,299valid ones were left forfinal analysis. The conclusions were as follows:1. There are no significant personality differences among education levels and professionaltitles.2. In terms of personality trait of agreeableness, there is significant difference betweenauthorized preschool teachers and non-authorized preschool teachers. Authorized preschoolteachers’agreeableness is significantly higher than no-authorized preschool teachers’.3. There are significant differences between excellent preschool teachers and ordinarypreschool teachers in the personality traits of extroversion and agreeableness. Specifically,excellent preschool teachers scored higher on extraversion and agreeableness than ordinarypreschool teachers.4. Preschool teachers’ extroversion of personality traits exist significant differences in termsof working time. For preschool teachers whose working experience were less than5years andmore than20years, they scored higher on extroversion than those with5to20years’ workingexperience.5. Preschool teachers’ personality traits in neuroticism and agreeableness exist significantdifferences in kindergarten types. Preschool teachers worked in township and village scoredhigher on neuroticism than those in urban and rural areas. In addition, city preschool teachers scored highest on agreeableness compared with those working in other areas.