What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation Analysis
Already in 2016, the German educational policy adopted the Education in the Digital World strategy, recommending that all teachers should become experts in using media. However, despite this initiative regarding the promotion of innovative forms of teaching using digital media, most teachers did not...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2022-06-01
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| Series: | Education Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/12/6/396 |
| _version_ | 1827660734665850880 |
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| author | Virginia Deborah Elaine Welter Lars Emmerichs Kirsten Schlüter |
| author_facet | Virginia Deborah Elaine Welter Lars Emmerichs Kirsten Schlüter |
| author_sort | Virginia Deborah Elaine Welter |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Already in 2016, the German educational policy adopted the Education in the Digital World strategy, recommending that all teachers should become experts in using media. However, despite this initiative regarding the promotion of innovative forms of teaching using digital media, most teachers did not feel optimally prepared to successfully cope with the demands of implementing e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most empirical studies on potential barriers to innovation pertain to comparatively easy, changeable environmental factors, whereas only a few studies have focused on teachers as an individual factor so far. Since several organizational psychological studies on the relationships between innovativeness and personality traits in professional contexts identified the personality trait of openness to experience to be particularly influential on the innovative behaviors of employees’, our study aimed to explore whether comparable results can also be found in the educational context. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey (<i>n</i> = 201) to analyze to what extent the Big Five personality traits are related to pre-service teachers’ self-concept of professional knowledge and, in particular, its digitalization-related domains. The results of our canonical correlation analysis show that the two personality traits of openness to experience and conscientiousness appear to be significantly related to the overall professional knowledge of our sample. Furthermore, a dominant affinity for technology seems to be associable with the risk of lower values on personality traits that are regarded to be pedagogically relevant. However, we found that our canonical model could also get along with fewer variables since the actual digitalization-related teaching skills were not sufficiently reflected by the canonical solution but were rather caught up in the domain of pedagogical content knowledge. Interpretations of these findings as well as practical implications are discussed. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:57:46Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c04635ff698548ffaba7aaa361c86266 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2227-7102 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T23:57:46Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Education Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-c04635ff698548ffaba7aaa361c862662023-11-23T16:23:08ZengMDPI AGEducation Sciences2227-71022022-06-0112639610.3390/educsci12060396What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation AnalysisVirginia Deborah Elaine Welter0Lars Emmerichs1Kirsten Schlüter2Department of Biology Education, IPN—Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, 24118 Kiel, GermanyInstitute of Biology Education, University of Cologne, 50931 Cologne, GermanyInstitute of Biology Education, University of Cologne, 50931 Cologne, GermanyAlready in 2016, the German educational policy adopted the Education in the Digital World strategy, recommending that all teachers should become experts in using media. However, despite this initiative regarding the promotion of innovative forms of teaching using digital media, most teachers did not feel optimally prepared to successfully cope with the demands of implementing e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most empirical studies on potential barriers to innovation pertain to comparatively easy, changeable environmental factors, whereas only a few studies have focused on teachers as an individual factor so far. Since several organizational psychological studies on the relationships between innovativeness and personality traits in professional contexts identified the personality trait of openness to experience to be particularly influential on the innovative behaviors of employees’, our study aimed to explore whether comparable results can also be found in the educational context. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional survey (<i>n</i> = 201) to analyze to what extent the Big Five personality traits are related to pre-service teachers’ self-concept of professional knowledge and, in particular, its digitalization-related domains. The results of our canonical correlation analysis show that the two personality traits of openness to experience and conscientiousness appear to be significantly related to the overall professional knowledge of our sample. Furthermore, a dominant affinity for technology seems to be associable with the risk of lower values on personality traits that are regarded to be pedagogically relevant. However, we found that our canonical model could also get along with fewer variables since the actual digitalization-related teaching skills were not sufficiently reflected by the canonical solution but were rather caught up in the domain of pedagogical content knowledge. Interpretations of these findings as well as practical implications are discussed.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/12/6/396pre-service teachersinnovativenessBig Five personality traitsself-concept of professional knowledgedigitalization-related skillscanonical correlation analysis |
| spellingShingle | Virginia Deborah Elaine Welter Lars Emmerichs Kirsten Schlüter What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation Analysis Education Sciences pre-service teachers innovativeness Big Five personality traits self-concept of professional knowledge digitalization-related skills canonical correlation analysis |
| title | What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation Analysis |
| title_full | What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation Analysis |
| title_fullStr | What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation Analysis |
| title_full_unstemmed | What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation Analysis |
| title_short | What Do the Relationships between Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Personality and Professional Knowledge Reveal about Their Innovativeness?—An Exploratory Study Using Canonical Correlation Analysis |
| title_sort | what do the relationships between pre service biology teachers personality and professional knowledge reveal about their innovativeness an exploratory study using canonical correlation analysis |
| topic | pre-service teachers innovativeness Big Five personality traits self-concept of professional knowledge digitalization-related skills canonical correlation analysis |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/12/6/396 |
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