The Relationship between Teachers’ Personality Traits and Doing Action Research

Abstract

Teachers’ personality traits are reflected not only in their classroom performance, especially in their selection of instructional activities, materials, strategies, and classroom management techniques, but also their interaction with students (Henson & Chambers, 2002). The present study aimed at examining the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ personality traits and doing action research. The study examined ninety-one male and female EFL teachers teaching English in public guidance schools and high schools in Mashhad, Iran. The instrument implemented was the Big Five Inventory (BFI), developed by John, Donahue, and Kentle (1991), measuring extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The findings indicated that personality trait of EFL teachers’ that doing action research is not significantly different from those teachers that not doing action research. It was also found that there was not any significant difference between male and female teachers on their big five personality traits.