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Personality, research creativity, and teaching effectiveness in university professors

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Abstract

Two separate studies were undertaken of the personality characteristics associated with research creativity and teaching effectiveness in university psychology professors. In the first study, 52 professors at The University of Western Ontario were evaluated on 29 trait dimensions using four assessment techniques: faculty peer ratings, student ratings, self ratings, and objective questionnaires. A composite criterion of research creativity was generated from publication and citation counts. A composite for teaching effectiveness was created from 5 years of archival data based on formal student evaluations. The personality measures demonstrated considerable convergence across modes of assessment for many traits. In turn, several traits differentiated between most and least creative researchers and most and least effective teachers. A second study, using a self report survey sent to 400 professors in graduate psychology departments at 9 Canadian universities, revealed substantial replications of the findings of Study 1. Limiting ourselves to those personality traits that reliably loaded on Research and Teaching factors in both studies, we may describe the creative researcher as ambitious, enduring, seeking definiteness, dominant, showing leadership, aggressive, independent, non-meek, and non-supportive. The effective teacher is best described as liberal, sociable, showing leadership, extraverted, nonanxious, objective, supporting, non-authoritarian, non-defensive, intelligent, and aesthetically sensitive.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, N6A 5C2, London, Ontario, Canada

    J. P. Rushton, H. G. Murray & S. V. Paunonen

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  1. J. P. Rushton
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  2. H. G. Murray
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  3. S. V. Paunonen
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Additional information

Financial support was provided by Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant No. 410-78-0108 to the first author and by a grant from Imperial Oil of Canada to the second author.

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Rushton, J.P., Murray, H.G. & Paunonen, S.V. Personality, research creativity, and teaching effectiveness in university professors. Scientometrics 5, 93–116 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02072856

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