Do personality traits make a difference in teaching styles among Chinese high school teachers?

This research pioneered the investigation of the predictive power of personality traits for teachers’ teaching styles. Participants were 157 teachers from two senior-high schools in the People’s Republic of China. Results indicated that teachers’ personality traits as measured by Costa and McCrae (1992) NEO Five-Factor Inventory significantly contributed to teachers’ teaching styles as assessed by the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory (Grigorenko and Sternberg, 1993) over and above their gender, educational level, and perceptions of the quality of the students they were teaching. Practical implications of this finding are proposed for school teachers and administrators.