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The current study uses social judgment theory to inform the design of processes to be used in selecting teachers for training programs. Developing a comprehensive selection process to identify individuals who are likely to succeed as teachers is a mechanism for improving teacher quality and raising the profile of the profession. The design of such a process requires the identification of qualities of effective teaching that can be assessed at selection, and their relative importance. Six psychological constructs are identified from previous literature that are likely to differentiate between teaching candidates – Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Resilience, Self-Regulation and Cognitive Ability. 90 participants judged the likely success of 35 hypothetical teaching candidates. All included constructs were positively related to candidate selection, with Cognitive Ability the most valued attribute. Individuals clustered into three groups – one characterized by a dominant preference for candidates with high cognitive ability, another characterized by a relative preference for people with high personality scores, agreeableness in particular, and a third characterized by a strong preference for candidates with high self-regulation and resilience. Further research is required to validate the current findings; however, they lend support to the use of all six constructs in teacher selection, particularly cognitive ability.
Sautelle et al. (Thu,) studied this question.