An Investigation Into The Correlation Between Proactive Personality And Academic Performance Of Pre-service English Teachers

Research about proactive personality has revealed that proactive personality is a relatively stable disposition toward proactive behavior,which generates employees'proactive behavior and thus benefits them in different aspects.A number of researches have been conducted on this subject both at home and abroad,which indicated that proactive personality as a unique personality characteristic that is not covered by the big five personality model(openness,conscientiousness,extraversion,agreeableness)was closely related to many behavioral outcomes,including newcomer adjustment,job performance,career success,entrepreneurship,students' self-efficacy,and learning motivation.Despite an increasing research interest in proactive personality,the scientific understanding regarding the impacts of learners' proactive personality on their academic performance is very limited.If any,the subjects are only restricted to middle school students.And researches just proved the correlation among students'proactive personality and self-efficacy,career decision-making self-efficacy,and freshman school adjustment.The current study,therefore,based on the existing studies,was carried out to figure out English pre-service teachers'degree of proactive personality and the current situation of their academic performance to analyze the correlation between the two through self-made questionnaire,proactive personality scale and semi-structured interview,expecting to raise some feasible suggestions to nurture pre-service teachers'proactive personality and to promote their academic performance.The participants are 56 English pre-service teachers from M.Ed.(Masters of Education)program in Central China Normal University This study aims to address the following four research questions:(1)What is the status quo of pre-service English teachers' proactive personality?(2)Are there any changes about their level of proactive personality through one year's M.Ed period?What factors have contributed to the changes?(3)What is the current situation of pre-service English teachers' academic performance?(4)Is there a correlation between pre-service teachers' current level of proactive personality and their status quo of academic performance?If any,how are they correlated?Results demonstrated that the level of English pre-service teachers'proactive personality is above the average with 3.6607,and roughly 65%of them claimed they have become increasingly proactive after a whole year's learning in CCNU for various factors such as supervisors' impacts,peers'inspiration,as well as the reinforcement of the rewarding benefits of being proactive.Those whose level of proactive personality hasn't been enhanced accounts for 10%,which is probably because some participants are too strong-minded to be changed in perspective of personality.Meanwhile,some participants don't have a good school fitting at the very beginning,and the size of the large-scale class accounts as well.Additionally,the present study also finds that the current situation of English pre-service teachers'academic performance is satisfying and proactive personality is moderately associated with academic performance.There is no correlation between English pre-service teachers'degree of proactive personality and course grade.This study indicts that pre-service teachers' academic performance can be enhanced through being cultivated to be proactive learners and autonomous learners.To begin with,teacher educators are expected to know better about proactive personality and academic performance of English pre-service teachers,providing corresponding encouragement,creating active classroom atmosphere,using attractive teaching methods,and altering evaluation system to guide pre-service teachers to be autonomous.Meanwhile,timely caring and feedback are expected as well,thus accomplishing the goal of grooming proactive pre-service teachers.Introducing the concept of proactive personality to pre-service teachers is also a helpful way.In addition,English pre-service teachers are supposed to pore over their personality and behavior so as to have a clear picture of their current academic performance,and adapt their mindset and behavior in daily learning life to optimize their academic performance rather than complain the outside environment.