Personality and Communication Skills Expectations of K–12 Educators: A Content Analysis of 21,805 Online Job Advertisements
Publication: Journal of Education Human Resources
Advance Access
Abstract
A wide range of skills are required of K–12 (kindergarten through Grade 12) teachers and staff in order to facilitate effective education. Although employer surveys, expert ratings, and empirical research such as predictive validity studies provide valuable insights into these skills, online job advertisements may offer additional critical data. These advertisements reflect a school or district’s priorities and values and allow job candidates an opportunity to evaluate whether they are an appropriate fit for a position or if they should pursue any supplementary training. The authors analyzed 21,805 online job advertisements from the United States to examine the expectations for K–12 teachers and staff across an understudied group of skills, namely, transferable skills. Based on our results, communication skills were highly valued for teachers, paraeducators, principals, and administrative assistants, but the relative importance of other constructs (e.g., personality) varied considerably across these groups. The authors discuss the practical implications of these findings for training, assessing, and recruiting K–12 teachers and staff.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Abbate-Vaughn, J., & Paugh, P.C. (2009). The paraeducator-to-teacher pipeline: Barriers and accomplishments. Journal of Developmental Education, 33, 16–29.
Adobe. (2019, November 5). Get hired: The importance of creativity and soft skills. https://campusadobe.com/jobskills
American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education. (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. American Educational Research Association.
Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 150–166.
Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1–26.
Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Judge, T. A. (2001). Personality and performance at the beginning of the new millennium: What do we know and where do we go next? International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 9, 9–30.
Bidjerano, T., & Dai, D. Y. (2007). The relationship between the big-five model of personality and self-regulated learning strategies. Learning and Individual Differences, 17(1), 69–81.
Boese, R., Lewis, P., Frugoli, P., & Litwin, K. (2001). Summary of O*NETTM 4.0 content model and database. National Center for O*NET Development.
Burgoyne, T. C., Reeder, M. C., & Allen, M. T. (2021). O*NET® analyst ratings of occupational skills: Analysis cycle 22 results final report. HUMRRO.
Buttner, S., Pijl, S. J., Bijstra, J., & van den Bosch, E. (2015). Personality traits of expert teachers of students with behavioural problems: a review and classification of the literature. The Australian Educational Researcher, 42(4), 461–481.
Calanca, F., Sayfullina, L., Minkus, L., Wagner, C., & Malmi, E. (2019). Responsible team players wanted: An analysis of soft skill requirements in job advertisements. EPJ Data Science, 8(13).
Deming, D., & Kahn, L.B. (2017). Skill requirements across firms and labor markets: Evidence from job postings for professionals (Working Paper 23328). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org/papers/w23328
DeYoung, C. G., Weisberg, Y. J., Quilty, L. C., & Peterson, J. B. (2013). Unifying the aspects of the Big Five, the interpersonal circumplex, and trait affiliation. Journal of Personality, 81, 465–475.
Gist, C. D., Garcia, A., & Amos, Y. T. (2022). An essential but overlooked workforce: Elevating the need to investigate the career development of paraeducators. Journal of Career Development, 49, 1039–1047.
Hancock, D. R., Hary, C., & Müller, U. (2012). An investigation of factors impacting the motivation of German and US teachers to become school principals. Research in Comparative and International Education, 7, 352–363.
Kaya, M., & Selvitopu, A. (2019). A meta-analysis of the effects of some factors on teachers’ classroom management skills. International Journal of Contemporary Educational Research, 6, 409–425.
Kell, H. J. (2019). Do teachers’ personality traits predict their performance? A comprehensive review of the empirical literature from 1990 to 2018 (Research Report No. RR-19-04). Educational Testing Service.
Kim, L. E., Jörg, V., & Klassen, R. M. (2019). A meta-analysis on the effects of teacher personality on teacher effectiveness and burnout. Educational Psychology Review, 31, 163–195.
Kimbrel, L. (2021). The impact of virtual employment interviews on the teacher hiring process. Administrative Issues Journal: Connecting Education, Practice, and Research, 11, 1–16.
Klassen, R. M., & Kim, L. E. (2019). Selecting teachers and prospective teachers: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 26, 32–51.
Klassen, R. M., & Tze, V. M. C. (2014). Teachers’ self-efficacy, personality, and teaching effectiveness: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 12, 59–76.
Lee, Y., Berry, C. M., & Gonzalez-Mulé, E. (2019). The importance of being humble: A meta-analysis and incremental validity analysis of the relationship between honesty-humility and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104, 1535–1546.
Leigh Sanzo, K., Sherman, W. H., & Clayton, J. (2011). Leadership practices of successful middle school principals. Journal of Educational Administration, 49, 31–45.
Martin-Raugh, M. P., Williams, K. M., & Lentini, J. (2020). The malleability of workplace-relevant noncognitive constructs: Empirical evidence from 39 meta-analyses and reviews (Research Report No. RR-20-23). Educational Testing Service.
McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (2008). Empirical and theoretical status of the five-factor model of personality traits. In G. J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D. H. Saklofske (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of personality theory and assessment: Personality theories and models (Vol. 1, pp. 273–294). Sage.
McNaughton, D., Hamlin, D., McCarthy, J., Head-Reeves, D., & Schreiner, M. (2008). Learning to listen: Teaching an active listening strategy to preservice education professionals. Topics in Early Childhood Education, 27, 223–231.
O’Boyle, E. H., Jr., Humphrey, R. H., Pollack, J. M., Hawver, T. H., & Story, P. A. (2011). The relation between emotional intelligence and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32, 788–818.
O*Net OnLine. (2023a, May 23). Browse by cross-functional skills. https://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/browse/Skills/2.A/
O*NET OnLine. (2023b, May 23). Browse by work styles. https://www.onetonline.org/find/descriptor/browse/Work_Styles/
O*NET OnLine. (2023c, May 23). Work styles. https://www.onetcenter.org/dictionary/26.2/excel/work_styles.html
Quacquarelli Symonds. (2019). 2019 global skills gap report.
Riggio, R. E., & Taylor, S. J. (2000). Personality and communication skills as predictors of hospice nurse performance. Journal of Business and Psychology, 15, 351–359.
Rios, J. A., Ling, G., Pugh, R., Becker, D., & Bacall, A. (2020). Identifying critical 21st-century skills for workplace success: A content analysis of job advertisements. Educational Researcher, 49(2), 80–89.
Robles, M. M. (2012). Executive perceptions of the top 10 skills needed in today’s workplace. Business Communication Quarterly, 75, 453–465.
Rosenberg, M. S., Mason-Williams, L., Kimmel, L., & Sindelar, P. T. (2021). Addressing teacher shortages in the COVID-19 landscape: Viewing teacher candidates as assets. Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning, 13, 86–95.
Rothstein, M. G., & Goffin, R. D. (2006). The use of personality measures in personnel selection: What does current research support? Human Resource Management Review, 16, 155–180.
Schmitt, N. (2014). Personality and cognitive ability as predictors of effective performance at work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 45–65.
Society for Human Resource Management. (2019). The global skills shortage: Bridging the talent gap with education, training and sourcing.
Tsacoumis, S., & Willison, S. (2010, March). O*NET® analyst occupational skill ratings: Procedures. HUMMRO.
Williams, K. M. (2019, October). High school equivalency students in workforce education: A two-year study [Paper presentation]. 2019 conference of the National Council for Workforce Education, San Antonio, TX, USA.
Williams, K. M., Martin-Raugh, M. P., & Lentini, J. E. (2022). Improving noncognitive constructs for career readiness and success: A theory of change for postsecondary, workplace, and research applications (Research Report No. RR-22-04). Educational Testing Service.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Education Human Resources
Advance Access
Copyright
© 2023 by Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. The publisher holds the copyright for the article.
History
Received: 8 June 2022
Revision received: 7 December 2022
Accepted: 18 March 2023
Published online: 11 September 2023
Keywords:
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Related Content
Citations
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Download article citation data for:
Journal of Education Human Resources 0 0:0
Journal of Education Human Resources 0 0:0