Influence of characterological features of personality on the effectiveness of professional activity of teachers of correctional schools

In modern society, in which the quality of education determines the level of development of the individual and the state as a whole, the problem of the effectiveness of the activities of pedagogical workers becomes particularly relevant. This is due to the fact that efficiency, as an indicator of the quality of education in Russia, is not growing, but falling.  The low labor efficiency indicators of workers in the pedagogical sphere are due to a number of external reasons: educational policy strategies, the lack of prestige of the teaching profession, low salaries of teachers, limited material and technical base of educational institutions, the quality of programs and teaching tools, the moral and psychological atmosphere in institutions, low motivation of students, etc. ^{[2, 4, 11, 12]}. 

Among the factors of the effectiveness of pedagogical work, the personal characteristics of the teacher are of no small importance. The problem is that the process of professional training of a future specialist requires attention not only in terms of motivational, value and cognitive readiness of future specialists, but also professional personal qualities. Firstly, this is due to the fact that personal qualities, such as sociability, organization, emotionality, perseverance, discipline and others, encourage the teacher to work on himself, to self-improvement. Secondly, the effectiveness of the educational process depends on personal characteristics, whether the teacher will be able to find an approach to students, build trusting relationships, motivate them to acquire knowledge, create a favorable psychological climate in the classroom ^{[1, 3]}.   

The increased interest in professionally significant personal characteristics of modern teachers is explained by the fact that the modernization of the modern education system, the implementation in practice of those humanistic principles that are laid down in the Law of the Russian Federation "On Education", the implementation of a personality-oriented developing school model - all this largely depends on the teacher as a person, from his attitude to children, to the profession and to himself as a professional. This statement is even more true in relation to the system of correctional education, due to the special role of the teacher's personality in the development of children with developmental peculiarities ^{[5, 6, 7]}. 

According to statistics, the number of children with developmental disabilities increases from year to year. Currently, there are more than 2 million children with disabilities in Russia (8% of the entire child population). In this regard, the attitude towards children with special educational needs is also changing. Modern society is gradually moving towards co-education of ordinary and atypical children, from segregation of children with special educational needs to integration of these children into mass school as a priority and natural direction of modernization of general and special education ^{[9, 10, 13]}.   

In such conditions, the role of the personality of a correctional school teacher in achieving the success of correctional and developmental activities increases, while the orientation of teachers to a personal model of interaction with students, timely organization of socio-pedagogical support, overcoming social stereotypes regarding the norm and pathology of personality becomes of fundamental importance ^[8].

E.A.Klimov, K.K.Platonov, V.D.Shadrikov and A.K.Markova, L.M.Mitina, V.A.Krutetsky, N.V.Kuzmina, etc. were engaged in the study of personal factors of employees of the pedagogical sphere. Abroad, this problem is being solved and solved by J. Guilford, F. Monk, J. Renzulli, S. Ris, N. Stenberg et al.

The analysis of scientific literature, as well as modern practice, show that there is no clear and well-founded approach to studying the influence of personal qualities, in particular the characterological characteristics of correctional school teachers on the effectiveness of their professional activities.

Numerous studies and real facts of today demonstrate an increase in cases of conflict situations between a teacher and a student, a decrease in the level of training and education of students, neglect of the responsibility of participants in the educational process, due to professional incompetence, lack of professionally important personal characteristics of the teacher ^[11].

Hence, there is a need to conduct a study aimed at studying the influence of the characterological characteristics of teachers on the effectiveness of their work.

The object of the study is the characterological features of teachers

The subject of our research is the influence of characterological features on the effectiveness of professional activity of teachers of correctional schools.

The purpose of our research is: to study the influence of characterological features on the effectiveness of professional activity of teachers of correctional schools.

Research methods: The study used a set of specific methods for collecting factual material and processing it: targeted observation, interviews, questionnaires, testing. The experimental research was based on the following methods: "Assessment of the professional orientation of the teacher's personality" by E.I. Rogova; McCrae-Costa's five-factor personality questionnaire "Big Five". The study used a set of specific methods for collecting factual material and processing it: targeted observation, interviews, questionnaires, testing.

The study was conducted during 2021-2022 on the basis of the Krasnoyarsk correctional boarding school of type VIII No. 3 with the participation of 57 teachers (women).

The age of the subjects is from 30-40 years, the work experience in the pedagogical field is on average about 7 years. All the subjects are subject teachers (mathematics, Russian, history, social studies, geography, etc.).

At the initial stage of the study, we studied the effectiveness of the professional activities of teachers of the Krasnoyarsk correctional boarding school of type VIII No. 3 according to the selected criteria. The criteria were identified by us and taken as a basis, based on the Regulations on the performance indicators of the teacher of the Krasnoyarsk correctional boarding school of type VIII No. 3, approved by the director of the school from 02.08.2021. The main method of evaluating the effectiveness of teachers' work in the Krasnoyarsk correctional boarding school of type VIII No. 3 is a model of a comprehensive assessment of the quality of professional activity of teaching staff, which constantly monitors the effectiveness of employees' work according to certain criteria. These are evaluation sheets, where the special commission approves incentive points according to the criteria put forward. 

We have taken as a basis, in accordance with the theory of L.M. Mitina ^[10], three formal criteria related to the direct professional activity of a teacher: the level of training of students, education and advanced training and the use of innovative activities in the profession.  Table 1 shows the indicators of the level of formation for each criterion.

Table 1 - Indicators of the formation of the criterion level.

The first criterion is the level of training of students. The level of training is the most important indicator of the effectiveness of a teacher's work and is monitored at school quite often during the school year: on certain topics, at the end of the academic quarter (trimester), according to the results of district, city control works. As part of our study, this criterion was monitored by analyzing educational journals that reflect students' grades, which made it possible to identify the academic performance and underachievement of students for the 2nd academic quarter.

A general analysis of the student population showed that 194 people study at the Krasnoyarsk correctional boarding school, of which 54 children belong to the category of orphans and children left without parental care, and 140 children live in a family. There are 15 classes formed in total, the occupancy of each is from 12-16 people. There are 57 teaching staff in total. Narrow specialists do not fit into this category, since they do not monitor the training and academic performance of students, but implement individual preventive and correctional work in their activities.

The analysis of the training of primary school students was carried out at the initial stage of studying this criterion (Table 2). In elementary school, one teacher implements an educational program for the class, conducts all academic disciplines, so there was no difficulty in comparing the performance of elementary school students with the effectiveness of their teachers.

Table 2 - The level of education of primary school students

Thus, according to the training of primary school students, we can talk about a high degree of efficiency of professional activity of teachers of grades 1a and 2a and an average level of efficiency of activity of teachers of grades 0, 3a, 4a.

The analysis of the effectiveness of the professional activities of middle and high school teachers is more difficult to track, since there are differences in the specifics of the activities of teachers of different levels of education.  In elementary school, one teacher carries out educational activities and monitors the progress of the entire class, and middle and high school teachers teach classes  for individual academic subjects. In this regard, the criterion of learning of secondary and high school students can be studied and compared with the effectiveness of teachers' professional activities only by analyzing student performance in certain disciplines.

As a result, the effectiveness of 57 secondary and high school teachers (subject teachers, teachers of additional education, labor training) in the training of classes in individual academic subjects was analyzed. The results are shown in Table 3

In the course of comparing the level of students' learning with the effectiveness of teachers' professional activities, a low level of efficiency was revealed in 10 people, an average in 28, and a high in 19.

Within the framework of this criterion and in accordance with the Regulation on the criteria of the effectiveness of the school, an assessment of the effectiveness of teaching was carried out by taking into account the individual characteristics of students in the process of learning and upbringing. This criterion is objectively necessary due to the specifics of the school and the contingent of students who have special features in development.

 This criterion implies that there are features of attention, memory, thinking in the construction of the lesson and the organization of educational activities. The education of attention, as well as education in general, crucially depends on the personal qualities of the teacher. The most important qualities of a teacher include attentiveness and observation of the teacher. It is known that there are significant differences between students in the productivity of certain types of memory: some easily remember figurative material, others – emotional, others – verbal, and others - movements. These differences are manifested in the success of educational activities, and the teacher should take them into account in his work. So, it is impossible to approach with the same requirements to assess the success of students in different disciplines.

 Taking into account individual characteristics is of particular importance in a correctional educational institution, since children with developmental disabilities need the teacher's constant attention to the compensatory merits of the child in order to build an individual development route. In order to accompany a child with disabilities, the school has developed and operates individual support diaries, which record the characteristics of the child's personality, changes in health status, necessary measures for prevention and correction of development, etc. Such a diary should be kept by every teacher, filling it out daily after classes.

 The analysis of the support diaries, which are kept by teachers, showed that they are designed for each of the students, their occupancy is carried out during the year under the supervision of classroom teachers. As a result of checking the status of the support diaries, the absence of an individual support program for a child was revealed in 9 people (12%) of teachers. Shortcomings in the maintenance of diaries for 26 (44%) teachers, such as the lack of recommendations from narrow specialists, were not noted by the soc. status, individual characteristics of the child. The presence of support diaries for all students of the class, filled out in full in a timely manner, was found in 15 (34%).

 As a result of the analysis by this criterion, we identified groups of teachers on three levels of effectiveness of their professional activities. The results of this analysis are presented in table 3.

Table 3 - Levels of effectiveness of professional activity of correctional school teachers

 The second criterion for the effectiveness of teachers' activities is education and professional development. This is one of the most important conditions for improving and maintaining the quality of teaching. The analysis of the level of education and timely professional development showed that all teachers have higher pedagogical education, but different degrees of qualification: first, higher and teachers without advanced training were identified, thus, teachers show different professional activity according to this criterion of the effectiveness of professional activity. The results are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – The degree of qualification of employees of the pedagogical sphere

With a detailed analysis of the degree of qualification and comparison with the effectiveness of teachers, it was revealed that 12 teachers (21%) do not have the highest first qualification category, 6 teachers (11%) have 7 years of work experience, but do not show activity in improving their professional level. The remaining subjects - 39 people have advanced qualifications, of which 30 (76%) – the first, and 15 (38%) teachers - the highest, and. Among teachers with 1 qualification category, those who, according to the legislation, have grounds for further improvement of their professional level, but do not show activity in this direction, were identified. there are 17 such teachers, which is 31%.

The third criterion is innovation activity. This activity allows the educational process to be carried out at a higher, modern level, contributes to the development of the school. The study of innovative activity was carried out to identify the methodological and practical activity of teachers, in particular, the number of published articles, project development, participation in professional creative competitions, the presence of a licensed program.

The analysis of this criterion showed that the majority of teachers (56%) show average activity in innovation, these teachers have shown themselves in this field once or twice, and currently can participate only if necessary, without desire. 24% of teachers have low innovative activity in the absence of objective reasons, and 20% show high methodological activity, which is confirmed by systematic methodological and practical activities, the presence of publications, awards, diplomas for participation in competitions, licensed programs.

Thus, based on all three criteria, as well as on the average indicator, data were obtained that assess the overall effectiveness of teachers' work (Table 4).

Table No. 4 - Levels of effectiveness of professional activity of correctional school teachers

 At the second stage of the study, the characterological features of teachers in each of the selected groups were studied.

From the numerous existing diagnostic techniques, we have identified such characterological qualities of the teacher, which, in our opinion, have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the teacher's pedagogical activity. The following methods allowed to identify the presence or absence of the above character traits: "Assessment of the professional orientation of the teacher's personality" by E.I. Rogova; McCrae-Costa's five-factor personality questionnaire "Big Five". These methods allowed us to identify 13 characterological qualities, namely: extraversion, introversion, attachment, isolation, self-control, impulsivity, emotional instability, emotional stability, expressiveness, practicality, organization, intelligence, focus on the subject. Of the whole spectrum of characterological qualities, the following are of particular importance in our study: extroversion (sociability), organization, attachment, emotional stability, since in our opinion, the presence or absence of these character qualities affects the effectiveness of the teaching staff of a correctional educational institution.

Interpretation of the data obtained according to the claimed methods, when compared with the previously identified levels of effectiveness of professional activity of teachers, showed that teachers with a low level of efficiency of professional activity are diagnosed with the following qualities: introversion, isolation, impulsivity, emotional instability, self-control, expressiveness, practicality, intelligence, focus on the subject. Teachers with an average level of effectiveness revealed: extraversion, introversion, organization, attachment, isolation, self-control, impulsivity, emotional stability, emotional instability, expressiveness, practicality, focus on the subject, intelligence.  Teachers with a high level of professional activity efficiency revealed such personality qualities as: extraversion, introversion, attachment, self-control, impulsivity, emotional stability, expressiveness, practicality, organization

Among all the revealed characterological qualities, such qualities as extroversion, attachment, organization and emotional stability are manifested in teachers of medium and high levels of efficiency and are absent in representatives of a low level of labor efficiency. Personal qualities such as: introversion, isolation, impulsivity, emotional instability, self-control, expressiveness, practicality, intelligence, focus on the subject are mainly inherent in teachers with low labor efficiency, some of them are revealed in teachers with an average level of labor productivity (introversion, expressiveness, practicality, focus on the subject, intelligence) and there are teachers with a high level of efficiency (self-control, expressiveness, focus on the subject). The results are shown in table 5.

Table 5 - Characterological features of teachers and the effectiveness of their professional activities

 The data obtained are also presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Characterological features of teachers and the effectiveness of their professional activities

Thus, during the diagnosis of the personality of teachers, character qualities were revealed that are inherent in teachers only with a high and average level of efficiency, these are such character qualities as extroversion, attachment, organization, emotional stability.

A complete analysis of the previously identified groups of effectiveness of professional activity of teachers shows that the declared qualities of character are particularly pronounced in representatives with a high level of efficiency of professional activity from 17 to 17 people (100%), and are also traced in more than half of the teachers from the group with an average level of efficiency of professional activity from 33 to 28 people (about 85%).

Other studied character qualities were revealed in teachers with different work efficiency (low, medium, high). 

Table 6 presents the calculated data for determining the degree of correlation and the value of the Pearson coefficient for each personal characteristic, which determines its relationship with low, medium or high efficiency of a teacher's professional activity.

Table 6 Correlation between the personal characteristics of the subjects and the degree of severity of their emotional burnout

The critical values of the Pearson correlation coefficient of day n = 30 are:

r _kr = 0.36 for ? ? 0.05;

r _kr = 0.46 for ? ? 0.01.

The statistical significance of the obtained empirical value of the correlation coefficient was also calculated using the Student's t-test.

t _kr = 2.049 for ? ? 0.05;

t _kr = 2.763 for ? ? 0.01.

The data was calculated in the Msexe1 program.

Thus, we have the following dependency:

Factor A is "extraversion-introversion". The relationship between factor A and the level of efficiency of professional activity is statistically significant (? ? 0.01.) and is positive: the more sociable a person is, the greater the level of efficiency.

Factor B is "attachment-isolation". The relationship between factor B and the level of efficiency of professional activity is statistically significant (? ? 0.01.) and is positive: the higher a person's attachment, the higher the efficiency of activity.

Factor C - "self–control - impulsivity". The relationship between factor C and the level of efficiency is statistically significant (? ? 0.01.) and is positive: the higher a person's self-control, the higher the efficiency.

Factor E - "expressiveness - practicality". The relationship between factor E and performance is statistically significant (? ? 0.01.) and is positive: the more pronounced a person's practicality, the higher the effectiveness of professional activity.

Factor F - "organization - disorganization". The relationship between factor F and performance is statistically significant (? ? 0.01.) and is positive: the more organized a person is, the higher the efficiency.

Factor G - "focus on the subject". The relationship between factor G and performance is statistically significant (? ? 0.01.) and is positive: the more a person is focused on the subject, the higher the effectiveness of his activities.

Thus, in the course of the study, 7% of teachers were identified with a low, 33% with an average and 17% with a high level of professional activity efficiency. In the course of diagnostics of personal qualities of teachers and comparison with the level of efficiency of professional activity, the presence of the character traits declared by us, such as organization, emotional stability, attachment and extraversion in teachers with medium and high levels of efficiency and the absence or weak expression of these character traits in teachers with a low level of efficiency of activity, was revealed. A complete analysis of the previously identified groups of effectiveness of professional activity of teachers shows that the declared qualities of character are particularly pronounced in representatives with a high level of efficiency of professional activity in 15 out of 15 subjects (100%), and are also traced in more than half of the teachers from the group with an average level of efficiency of professional activity in 28 out of 33 people (85%).

In connection with the data obtained, we can talk about the influence of such character traits as: extroversion (sociability), organization, attachment, emotional stability on the effectiveness of professional activity.

Currently, the issues of improving labor efficiency are relevant, the search is underway for ways and conditions to prevent low efficiency of professional activity. In this regard, factors that increase labor efficiency, such as the characterological features of correctional school teachers, are important for effective recruitment, as well as in the process of planning measures for the preservation and development of teaching staff, in particular, the organization of psychological-correctional and preventive measures to improve the effectiveness of the professional activities of teachers of the Krasnoyarsk correctional boarding school VIII of type No. 3. The proposed procedure for diagnosing the characterological characteristics of teachers can serve as a basis for scientific research on this problem in other educational institutions.