Webinar | How do personality traits affect teacher trainee retention?

In caring professions, such as teaching and healthcare, personality traits influence the ways in which people cope with demands and find fulfilment in their work. Against the backdrop of an international crisis in early career teacher retention, this webinar explores the value of using of an online personality assessment tool – the Cambridge Personal Styles Questionnaire (CPSQ) – to inform pastoral care and mentoring activities for these COVID-19 times and beyond.

In early February a report was published the Charted College of Teaching titled 'Personality traits linked to course withdrawal and retention for primary school trainees' written by a group of experts from organisations in the UK, including Lyn Dale from Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing. The report presents findings from a study looking at retention and withdrawal in primary school teacher trainees with Suffolk and Norfolk School Centred Initial Teacher Training, showing which personality traits were identified as protective and risk factors for retention. The webinar will be a chance to discuss the report findings focusing on the personality traits used in CPSQ’s behavioural competency reporting has helped tutors, mentors and trainees prioritise emotional and psychological demands of joining the profession, and how using the CPSQ reports has opened up critical discussions with a shared and non-judgemental language. 

The seminar presenters will be:

• Dr Alison Fox, Senior Lecturer in Teaching and Learning, Open University
• Anna Richards, Executive Leader at Suffolk and Norfolk SCITT
• Lyn Dale, Assessment Psychologist, Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing

An article based on these research findings will be included in Impact vol 11, the Journal of the Chartered College of Teaching (UK), published on 3 February 2021.

Full details on how to register can be found on the Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing website.