Teachers’ personality and classroom management styles

This work is concerned with the relation between structural and dinamic personal characteristics of teachers and classroom management styles. Classroom management is related with all teacher’s actions, aimed to create safe and stimulative learning environment, that could be covered by three broad dimensions. The first of them includes teacher's actions related with students' personal growth and establishing of psychological atmosphere in the classroom. The second dimension consists of all that teacher undertakes to ensure the performance of the learning process in the classroom: the use of space, equipment and learning materials, organization of time, the choice of teaching forms, methods and techniques, variety of activities, involvement of students into learning activities and maintenance of their activity during the classes, instructions, learning content structuring. The third dimension is related to procedures that teacher undertakes to establish and maintain discipline in tne classroom. It is clear, therefore, that the concept of classroom management involves a number of roles that a teacher performs working with students, and competences that are necessary for their successful performance, but it is also associated with teachers’ personality characteristics which largely determine the way in which the teacher controls the situation in the classroom, ie. the dominant classroom management style he applies. This paper examines the three styles: interventionist, non-interventionist and interactionist. The first two are located at the ends of the continuum that represents the distribution of power and control over the situation in the classroom between teacher and students. At one end it is a style that is characterized by the complete control of the teacher (interventionist), and at the opposite end of the continuum it is the style of teacher who completely passes responsibility for the situation in the classroom to students (non-interventionist). Between these two extremes it is the interactionist style that implies the distribution of responsibility and of control over the situation in the classroom between teacher and students. Given that classroom management styles are shown as different successful when their effectiveness is measured by the quality of classroom climate and through students’ academic achievement, the question is whether it is possible to identify those personality traits that characterize the profile of teachers who use various styles of classroom management. Therefore, a total of 273 class teachers and subject teachers from several primary schools 265 were examined by Personality Inventory NEO PI-R, Inventory of personal orientation POI, Scale of authoritarian worldview AP 2, and Inventory of classroom management styles ICMS. Also, two independent evaluators observed two classes of each teacher in the sample and, using the Protocol for teachers’ classroom management styles assessment PPSNUR (instrument developed through this research), evaluated the level of expression of each of these three styles and the style that every teacher predominantly uses. Every teacher and all students of visited classes assessed the quality of classroom climate during the lessons held by observed teacher in that class. In order to collect data about the control variables, each teacher completed the questionnaire about demographic variables and the variables related to teacher’s professional status, working motivation, professional development and working environment, and Working climate questionnaire WCQ. The results show that, among the studied variables in the domain of structural and dynamic teachers’ personality traits, the most significant predictor of classroom management styles is one of the two major dimensions of self-actualization, Time competence. Among examined basic personality dimensions, Extraversion, Openness to experience and Agreeableness were identified as significant predictors of teachers’ classroom management styles. In addition to these dimensions, it was shown that teacher’s experience with the quality of the working climate, in terms of the degree of autonomy that he realizes in his work, is important predictor of classroom management styles as well. The research results also confirmed that the interactionist classroom management style is the most effective approach. Both students and teachers were the most satisfied with the quality of classroom climate when the teacher uses it as the predominantly style, ie. when interactionist style is more expressed in his work in the classroom. Also, in comparison with the other two styles, interactionist style is advantageous to improving students’ academic achievement. In addition to shedding light on the very concept of classroom management through the analysis of its relationship with teachers’ personality characteristics and to reconsideration of the effectiveness of various classroom management styles, research results have practical implications, because they suggest the possibility of supporting development of those personal characteristics of future and in-service teachers that could contribute to use interactionist style. Such support could be provided through programs of basic teachers’ education and in-service teachers’ trainings, as well as through establishing appropriate working climate in schools. The final effect would be further improving the quality of education in our schools