Impact of Personality Traits of Secondary School Teachers on Students’ Achievement in Punjab

As we know that teachers’ personality has a significant role in improving students’ learning achievements in a broad sphere of teaching-learning process. It plays a major role in creating a friendly, satisfactory or encouraging learning environment for students. In this context, this study is performed in conformity with analyzed teachers’ personality traits to recommend its impact on students’ learning achievement. This study is based on mixed method approach. The population of the study comprised of all the students, their teachers and head teachers (headmaster/ headmistress) of secondary schools. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to draw the true representative sample from the population. The respondents were taken from 12 districts i.e. Bahawalpur, Lodhran, Vahari, Attock, Chakwal, Toba Take Singh, Gujarat, Jhang, Sargodha, Rajan pur, Muzafar Garh, D.G Khan Tehsils of Punjab. Two questionnaires were used in the study as a research tool, one for teachers and one for students. The questionnaire for teachers and students was based on an adapted personality measure scales. The researcher has adapted the standardized personality questionnaire of John and Srivastava Big Five Inventory (1999). It was designed to measure extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness for analyzing personality traits of secondary school teachers, this version of the tool has already used in many studies to measure the personality traits of a person. An interview protocol was once developed for the head teacher and observation checklist to analyze teachers’ personality and behavior in the classroom. Academic achievement scores of these students were also taken from students’ previous class form Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE). The study consisted of entire subjects the teacher teaches in secondary classes. All research instruments were validated through applying factor analysis and Pearson correlation coefficient for constructs. Reliability of tools was determined via calculating Cronbach’s Alpha value. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) software program was used to analyze the accumulated data. To analyze information means score, t-test and one-way ANOVA was used for the calculations. Responses from the semi[1]structured interviews and open-ended questions were used to analyze qualitative information. Both interview and observation were analyzed through the qualitative method of data analysis. The findings of the study reveal that only one unit in teachers’ personality will cause to increase in students’ performance. Openness has a significant positive effect on the students’ performance. The results demonstrate that teachers’ personalities indicate no significant effect on students’ performance. The findings expressed that students’ marks in the subject are not dependent on teachers’ personality. The correlation illustrates that there is a weak inverse correlation between extroversion and agreeableness while, neuroticism and agreeableness are moderate positive whereas, neuroticism and extroversion are very weakly positive. Openness has an inverse weak correlation with agreeableness, weak correlation with extroversion and very weak association with neuroticism. Conscientiousness has a weak correlation with extroversion and neuroticism and weak association with openness. Moreover, students’ marks in BISE exams have a very weak association with extroversion, openness, and overall personality. Finally, there is also a need that teacher must be hardworking, dedicated, and create a peaceful learning environment in the classroom which builds positive attitudes among students to foster their - learners and employ appropriate teaching methods. To improve the quality of education, the government should improve the recruitment policy and selection should be based on merit. The government should also organize different academic workshops and seminars for teachers on regular basis for their professional development. Based on the results of the observation, teachers need to be more enthusiastic and kind with student and should be active in classroom.