Teacher personality: What characteristics best suit the needs of gifted students.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify personality characteristics of teachers of the gifted and to determine the relationship of these characteristics to students' perceptions of classroom climate. The study compares six teachers of the gifted in self-contained classrooms, grades one through six with six teachers in heterogeneous classrooms, grades one through six. To define the personality characteristics that might be beneficial in the successful teaching of gifted children, teachers responded to personality inventories and teachers and students responded to a classroom questionnaire on Thinking Skills and Climate. One self-contained class for the gifted was included at each grade level and one class of heterogeneously grouped students. Each teacher was asked to respond to the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) and the Transaction Ability Inventory (TAI). Students in each class responded to a modified version of the Class Activities Questionnaire (CAQ). Each teacher MBTI and TAI personality characteristic was correlated with higher level thinking skills and climatic factors in the classroom to determine which personality traits were best suited to teaching gifted children.