Teachers' personality types and their attitude toward receiving and employing postobservation feedback

Abstract

AbstractClassroom observation has been long considered a powerful tool for evaluating and monitoring teachers' performance and progress. Teachers can benefit from the feedback during the postobservation conference but giving feedback is not a simple skill and needs knowledge and training. Research on tackling postobservation problems remains emerging and the aim of this study is to explore the role that a teacher's personality type–based on DiSC personality test‐ might play in postobservation conferences and reaction to receiving feedback from the supervisor. To gather data, 20 nonnative EFL teachers were asked to take the DiSC personality test to have their personality types identified, then they were observed three times, and each time they received feedback on their classroom management techniques. Results indicate that teachers with different personality types act differently during the postobservation conferences. While D and i styles are active and tend to employ feedback moderately and strongly in their classes, S and C styles are mostly passive with the tendency of employing feedback moderately and weakly. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of personality types in teachers' tolerance of criticism and their tendency to apply the received feedback in their future classes.