The Effect of Personality on Job Satisfaction Among Teacher Professionals

Aim of this current study is to investigate how the personality of the teacher professionals effect on their job satisfaction.

In education teachers are the most significant and effective professions. Teaching being a noble profession, teachers can be considered as the pillars of the society as they lay the firm foundation for the future development of students. The present study will be looking in to personality’s effect on the job satisfaction among preschool teachers, secondary school teachers and university lecturers. The study will be investigating the relationship between personality traits and the job satisfaction. And also whether up to which extent the teaching professional have the personality traits. It will also examine the relationship between teachers’ characteristics and their personality traits. This specific study would be an exploratory study with appropriate sample. Many research have been done on teachers’ personalities, and job satisfaction and past literature suggests a positive relationship between personality and job satisfaction. Yet not many research have been conducted with secondary school teachers and university lecturers together, also how these factors differ among teaching professionals especially in Sri Lankan context making the present study an exploratory study. This present study will also aid greatly in future when recruiting teachers and providing enhancement programs in Sri Lanka.1. Judge, T. A., Heller, D. & Mount, M. K 2002 “Five-Factor Model of Personality and Job Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis” Journal of Applied Psychology. 87. 530-541

This meta-analysis study was conducted in order to gather an overall idea of traits linking the five-factor model of personality together with job satisfaction. In order to conduct this study the researchers used almost 1277 abstracts of articles with the help of Psych Info data base. Out of this 737 articles were obtained and identified to be articles linking job satisfaction with personality. The results of this meta-analytic study produced the results that Neuroticism (p=-0.29) to have the strongest negative correlation with job satisfaction followed by Conscientiousness (p= .26). Meta- analytic studies always have the ability to produce results that are highly reliable due to the results being a combination and comparison with studies done through a large period of time (1887-2000) and also with a large number of participants and findings.

Though the present study will only be using teachers and lecturers as participants, the findings of this study would be able to pave the way to what may be expected from the present study. Though this study holds a high reliability most meta-analytic studies suffer from limited ecological validity due to having many different samples and therefore having discrepancies of inclusion and exclusion criteria.2. Pandey, N.S. and Kavitha, M. (2015) ‘Relationship between Big Five Personality and Job Satisfaction of private high school teachers, in debauchery region: an empirical analysis’. International Journal of Economics and Social Sciences. 5 (8); 245-253

This study was conducted using a sample of 200 private high school teachers in order to explore a relationship of their big five personality together with their job satisfaction. The majority of the sample included female teachers and the sample was selected through a convenient sampling method. With the use of the Big five inventory and Teachers Sense of Efficacy the studies’ results suggested that a significant relationship was seen between job satisfaction and extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. A negative relationship was concluded between job satisfaction and neuroticism. It was also seen that openness and job satisfaction had no significant relationship within this sample of private high school teachers. The present study will be conducted in order to identify whether this same relationship or a different relationship will be seen in Sri Lankan teachers. Yet unlike this study conducted in India, the present study will have a comparison between three categories of teachers in order to understand if the levels of teaching professions have an effect on the relationship between personality and job satisfaction.3. Vorkapic, S.T. (2013) ‘Importance of students’ personality traits for their future work with preschool children’. Metodicki obzori. 2(8); 35-46.

Through the identification of the importance personality traits ability to have a strong significant effect on the quality of educational work with children, this study aimed to analyze the personality traits of future preschool teachers. The study was conducted using 64 students who were already enrolled in an Early and Preschool Care and Education study program. The students were assessed with the Big Five Inventory and the results suggested the sample had higher levels of extraversion, agreeableness and openness and very low levels of neuroticism. The sample consisted of students from the first year and the second year and age ranges from 19 to 23 yet neither the generation nor age showed any significant correlation with their personality traits. This study helped the present study into understanding which types of personality traits are more popular within preschool teachers.

This study identifies the importance of identifying the personality traits of teachers prior to appointing them to take care and educate the younger generations.4. Kappagoda, U. (2013) ‘The Relationship between principals’ Emotional Intelligence and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction: A Case of National School in Sri Lanka’ With the emerging number of research being conducted in Sri Lanka a study done in 2013 in Sri Lanka assessed to explore the relationship between the emotional intelligence of principals together with the job satisfaction of teachers.

A sample of 50 principals and 200 teachers who were employed in national schools were selected through a convenient sampling method. The researcher selected one principal and four teachers who worked under that principal. The majority of the principals were male whereas the majority of the teachers were females. The results showed the emotional intelligence of principals to have a high positive relationship with the job satisfaction of teachers. The study concluded the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership in order to improve job satisfaction. As this study concentrated mainly on male teachers, the present study has its focus mainly on female teacher professionals in order to touch into a more balanced idea about the Sri Lankan education system.5. Ngimbudzi, F.W. (2009) ‘Job Satisfaction among secondary school teachers in Tanzania: The Case of Njombe District’. The study aimed at exploring and identifying factors that were associated with the job satisfaction of secondary school teachers.

A sample of 162 secondary school teachers were selected for this study. When explored under different categories of job satisfaction the study’s findings suggested the teachers to be satisfied when referring to aspects of social benefits and meaningfulness of the job and support from administration yet they indicated to be least satisfied with aspects that were under job characteristics dimension. The results furthermore suggested that age, gender, school location and school type had a signification relationship with the teachers’ job satisfaction yet their marital status, teaching experience, teaching type and promotional position showed no such significant relationship when assess with all five core dimensions of job satisfaction. This helped the present study to also focus more towards the dependent variable of job satisfaction rather than going too into depth into factors such as age, gender, marital status, etc.