EXAMINING PRE-SERVICE PHSICAL EDUCATION TEACHERS' DEPARTMENTAL SATISFACTION AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: VOCATIONAL PERSONALITY APPROACH

Abstract

The main purpose of the current study was to examine the role of vocational personality in physical education pre-service teachers’ satisfaction and academic performance. The Holland’s Theory of Personalities in Work Environments was the theoretical framework for the current study. According to this theory, there are six vocational personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. The participants consisted of 131 pre-service physical education teachers in Turkey. The findings revealed that social people tended to be satisfied with studying in the department of physical education; however, no significant relationship between social scores and academic performance existed, which means that higher social scores did not contribute to higher levels of academic performance. The best predictor of academic performance was found to be conventional personality type, which suggests that orderly, systematic and precise pre-service teachers tend to show higher levels of academic performance. Based on these results, the department of physical education seems to be an ideal department for those possessing social and conventional personality types.

Keywords

• physical education
• vocational choice
• Holland’s theory
• personality