Self-reported personality and school achievement as predictors of teachers' perceptions of their students

This study focuses on how certain school behaviors and attitudes in students as perceived by their teachers are related to personality characteristics evaluated by means of self-reports and previous school achievement. The subjects who took part in this research were 470 male and female students from 12 primary schools. Teachers' perceptions of students' behaviors and attitudes were assessed by a rating scale; the personality measures used were the Junior versions of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire [Eysenck, S. B. G., Garcia-Sevilla, L., Perez, J. (1994). Diferencias de personalidad entre jovenes catalanes e ingleses. [Personality differences between Catalan and English Youngsters]. Revista de Psicolologia General, Aplicada, 47, 467-469], Sensation-seeking Scales [Perez, J., Ortet, G., Pla, S., Simo, S. (1986). A Junior Sensation-seeking Scale (J-SSS). Personality and Individual Differences, 7, 915-918] and A junior questionnaire for the measurement of sensitivity to punishment and sensitivity to reward [Torrubia, R., Garcia-Carrillo, M., Avila, C., Caseras, F, X., & Grande, I. (in preparation)]. The results showed that academic achievement and personality dimensions and traits related to socialization contribute to teachers' perception of their students. Nevertheless it must be noticed that the degree of influence of these variables depends on the type of attitude or behavior considered. Perception of academic attitudes is mainly predicted by previous academic achievement whereas perception of maladjustment is mainly predicted by personality. Furthermore, some gender differences found in this study are also discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.