Abstract
This integrative review aims to render a systematic account of the role that teachers’ psychological characteristics, such as their motivation and personality, play for critical outcomes in terms of teacher effectiveness, teachers’ well-being, retention, and positive interpersonal relations with multiple stakeholders (e.g., students, parents, principals, colleagues). We first summarize and evaluate the available evidence on relations between psychological characteristics and these outcomes derived in existing research syntheses (meta-analyses, systematic reviews). We then discuss implications of the findings regarding the eight identified psychological characteristics—self-efficacy, causal attributions, expectations, personality, enthusiasm, emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and mindfulness—for research and educational practice. In terms of practical recommendations, we focus on teacher selection and the design of future professional development activities as areas that particularly profit from a profound understanding of the relative importance of different psychological teacher characteristics in facilitating adaptive outcomes.
Highlights
This integrative review aims to render a systematic account of the role that teachers’ psychological characteristics, such as their motivation and personality, play for critical outcomes in terms of teacher effectiveness, teachers’ well-being, retention, and positive interpersonal relations with multiple stakeholders
In terms of practical recommendations, we focus on teacher selection and the design of future professional development activities as areas that profit from a profound understanding of the relative importance of different psychological teacher characteristics in facilitating adaptive outcomes
For educational practice, summarizing, synthesizing, and organizing what we know about psychological characteristics in the teacher domain will help to inform selection decisions (What should we look for?) and decisions regarding the content of teacher education and professional development programs (What should we develop?)
Summary
This integrative review aims to render a systematic account of the role that teachers’ psychological characteristics, such as their motivation and personality, play for critical outcomes in terms of teacher effectiveness, teachers’ well-being, retention, and positive interpersonal relations with multiple stakeholders (e.g., students, parents, principals, colleagues). We first summarize and evaluate the available evidence on relations between psychological characteristics and these outcomes derived in existing research syntheses (meta-analyses, systematic reviews). We conduct a synthesis of existing syntheses (meta-analyses, systematic reviews) covering multiple psychological characteristics of teachers in order to advance understandings of their relative contributions to a broad range of outcomes (teacher effectiveness variables, such as student achievement, as well as teachers’ well-being, retention, and interpersonal relations, for example with students, parents, colleagues). We add to this that an effective teacher promotes a variety of other outcomes as well, such as students’ adaptive motivational patterns, development of socio-emotional competences, self-regulated learning, etc. (e.g., Bardach et al, 2020; Kraft, 2019; Muijs, 2006; Perry et al, 2007)
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