Personality and Attitude towards Teaching Profession: Mediating Role of Self Efficacy

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to examine the correlation between the five factor personality traits of pre-service teachers and their attitudes towards the teaching profession and to test the mediating role of the pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. The study population included pre-service teachers that attended the "pedagogical formation course" instructed / applied in İnönü University, Faculty of Education, Department of Educational Sciences in 2015-2016 academic year. The survey sample included 382 pre-service teachers who voluntarily responded to the measurement instruments utilized in the study. The study data were collected with the "five factor personality scale", "attitudes towards the teaching profession scale" and "teacher self-efficacy scale". The obtained data were analyzed with path analysis of structural equation modeling. In conclusion, it was observed that there was a significant positive correlation between the five factor personality traits of extraversion, conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness and teacher self-efficacy belief, and there was a significant negative correlation between neuroticism personality trait and teacher self-efficacy belief. It was observed that the self-efficacy beliefs of pre-service teachers played a full mediating role between their neuroticism, openness and extraversion personality traits, and the same played a partial mediating role in the correlation between conscientiousness and agreeableness personality traits and the attitude towards the teaching profession. The implementation of a curriculum in pre-service teacher training that would increase the self-efficacy beliefs on teaching would also improve their attitudes towards the profession positively.