Importance of Students’ Personality Traits for Their Future Work with Preschool Children

Preschool teachers’ personality traits could have a strong significance for the quality of educational work with preschool children. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyse personality traits of future preschool teachers within Big Five personality model: extraversion, neuroticism, consciousness, agreeableness and openness to experience. Besides, the relationship of their personality traits with academic year and the age of students was analysed too. Subjects were 64 students (age range from 19 to 23 years) enrolled at Early and Preschool Care and Education study program at Faculty of Teacher Education in Rijeka. As it was assumed, higher levels of extraversion, agreeableness and openness to experience and lower levels of neuroticism were determined. Also as it was expected, there was no significant correlation between students’ generation and age with personality traits. In addition to research, this study emphasized the importance of the preschool teacher–child interaction in the kindergarten and the whole climate that (s)he creates within work with children, with guidelines for future studies.