The Relationship between Personality Traits, Workload and Korean Teaching Practices
Dr Cuie Xu
School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds
ABSTRACT
While prior research on teachers has focused on aspects like teaching effectiveness, teachers’ efficacy, and burnout from the standpoint of how personality traits are associated with these topics, teaching practices, as an important aspect of teachers’, have barely been studied. In light of this issue, this study, which focuses on language teaching, investigates whether teaching practices are linked to both internal (personality traits) and external (workload) factors. This paper reports on a pilot study on Korean language scholars in UK higher education and aims to answer three research questions: 1) Could Korean teaching practices and personality traits be related in any way? 2) Could personality traits and stress or burnout be related in any way? 3) What impact does workload-related stress or burnout have on Korean teaching practices? This study used a 35-question questionnaire addressing personality traits, workload, stress or burnout, and teaching practices to address the above three questions. The Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) was used to measure personality traits. The preliminary study was conducted using a small dataset consisting of six respondents. Preliminary data analysis shows a potential association between openness and various teaching practices, and an unexpected correlation between openness and stress or burnout. Furthermore, a heavy workload may be closely linked to stress or burnout, which has a negative effect on language teaching by decreasing creativity. However, further research with an expanded sample size is needed to validate these findings.
KEYWORDS: Personality Traits, Workload, Korean Teaching Practices
INTRODUCTION[1]
As Mercer (2018) points out, the field of Psychology for Language Learning (PLL) has focused so ‘predominantly on the psychology of language learners’ that ‘the research on teachers as individuals with complex, nuanced, unique psychologies, as exists for learners, is very limited’. Existing literature on the relationship between teacher’s personality traits and teaching relevant aspects has covered various angles: the correlation between personality traits and teaching effectiveness (Klassen and Tze, 2014; Kell, 2019); personality traits and burnout (Kim et al., 2019); personality traits and teaching performance (Scheepers et al., 2014); personality traits and teacher’s self-efficacy (Lee and Klein, 2002); personality traits and teaching styles (expert, formal authority, personal model, facilitator, delegator) (Zhang, 2007); and personality traits and teacher’s attitude towards the teaching profession (Üstüner, 2017). Teaching practices, one of the most important aspects of teachers, are, however, barely touched upon. Therefore, this study aims to understand teachers from a different angle: whether teachers’ teaching practices could be influenced by their personality traits, which is an internal factor, and workload, which is an external factor, with a focus on language teaching.
Language teaching scholars face many challenges. As Songbatumis (2017) states, challenges may come from students; for example, students may have ‘low motivation and lack discipline (which are especially vital for language learning),[2] and challenges can also come from the teachers’ side; for example, there may be ‘a shortage of language teachers’ training, limited mastery of teaching methods, unfamiliarity with IT, and lack of professional development’. In addition, language scholars also need to respond swiftly to changes in students’ learning needs and interests by reflecting the development of new technologies or new teaching methods, the teacher-student relationship, the change in workload due to the increased amount of student-facing support, etc. How language scholars respond to the above challenges or changes may be largely associated with their personality traits and their availability, which is determined by their workload.
To test this hypothesis, this pilot study surveyed Korean teaching scholars and aimed to investigate whether there is a potential relationship between personality traits, workload, and Korean teaching practices by answering the following three research questions: 1) Could Korean teaching practices and personality traits be related in any way? 2) Could personality traits and stress or burnout be related in any way? 3) What impact does workload-related stress or burnout have on Korean teaching practices?
This study is a pilot study for the main study, which examines factors influencing language teaching practices in the higher education context. The main study seeks to provide practitioners and institutions with a research-informed understanding of the relationship between language teaching practices and the factors that contributed to them and inform the design of training resources for the professional development of language scholars. The implications of this pilot study on the main study will be discussed in data analysis.
METHODOLOGY
Questionnaire
10 questions for personality traits
This study used a 35-question questionnaire. 10 of the 35 questions were used to measure five different personality traits. The following are representative traits of each personality trait:
openness (creative, curious, cultured),
conscientiousness (organised, responsible, reliable),
extraversion (sociable, assertive, energetic),
agreeableness (kind, cooperative, trustful),
neuroticism (calm, secure, unemotional). (Kim et al., 2019, p.164)
Below are the 10 questions used to evaluate personality traits.
| Rammstedt and John (2007):
1. I see myself as someone who is reserved. 2. I see myself as someone who is generally trusting. 3. I see myself as someone who tends to be lazy. 4. I see myself as someone who is relaxed, handles stress well. 5. I see myself as someone who has few artistic interests. 6. I see myself as someone who is outgoing, sociable. 7. I see myself as someone who tends to find fault with others. 8. I see myself as someone who does a thorough job. 9. I see myself as someone who gets nervous easily. 10. I see myself as someone who has an active imagination. |
The above 10-item short version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI-44), known as the BFI-10, was used to measure the five personality traits mentioned above. The validity and reliability of the BFI-10 were tested as acceptable by Rammstedt and John (2007). As they report, compared to BFI-44, extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness were best represented by their two-item versions (average correlations of 0.89, 0.86, and 0.82, respectively), and in agreeableness and openness, the BFI-10 lost 45% and 38% of the variance of the BFI-44 (full) scales, meaning that using these abbreviated scales comes at a cost. However, overall, the BFI-10 scales predicted almost 70% of the variance of the BFI-44 scales, which is acceptable (Rammstedt and John, 2007). In terms of scoring, one of the two BFI items used to assess each personality trait was true-scored, while the other was reverse-scored.
15 questions for language teaching practices
Furthermore, 15 items were designed to evaluate five aspects of Korean teaching practices, with three items assessing each aspect of Korean teaching practices. Five practices measured are: openness to fostering a student-centred learning environment; use of assessment and feedback to inform teaching practices; ways of interaction with students; willingness to adapt to students’ needs; and the ability to deal with challenging situations involving students.
Below are the 15 questions used to assess teaching practices.
|
The hypothesis that underpinned the design of the five aspects of teaching practices was that each aspect could be associated with one personality trait. I assumed openness could be associated with fostering a student-centred learning environment; conscientiousness with the use of assessment and feedback to inform teaching practices; extraversion with the ways of interaction with students; agreeableness with the willingness to adapt; and emotional stability and the ability to deal with challenging situations involving students.
In the design of the questionnaire, it was predicted that:
- questions 15-17 could be associated with agreeableness,
- questions 18-20 could be associated with neuroticism,
- questions 21-23 could be associated with conscientiousness,
- questions 24-26 could be associated with openness, and
- questions 27-29 could be associated with extraversion.
Participants in this study self-reported their personality traits and teaching practices on a five-point scale ranging from ‘disagree strongly’ to ‘agree strongly.’ Consequently, respondents’ scores for each personality trait could range from two to ten, and their scores for each aspect of teaching practices could range from three to fifteen points. Because the neuroticism score indicates that the higher the score, the lower the emotional stability, it was reversed for the purpose of calculating its correlation with teaching practices. In addition, three items of the 35 questions were for self-reporting workload, level of stress or burnout, and the impact of stress or burnout.
Respondents
As shown in Table 1, six current practitioners, three females and three males, responded to the questionnaire. All three females have seven to ten years of experience teaching Korean. The three males have one to three years, four to six years, and more than ten years of Korean teaching experience, respectively. Six respondents represented at least two institutions.
| Respondent | Age | Gender | Years of Korean teaching experience |
| 1 | 35-44 | Woman | 7-10 |
| 2 | 45-54 | Man | 4-6 |
| 3 | 25-34 | Woman | 7-10 |
| 4 | 55 or above | Man | > 10 |
| 5 | 35-44 | Woman | 7-10 |
| 6 | 35-44 | Man | 1-3 |
Table 1: The demographics of the six respondents
Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation r
Based on descriptive statistics (mean, median, range, and standard deviation), I analysed the similarities and differences in respondents’ personality traits. I also calculated the Pearson correlation coefficient r to see if there is a potential correlation between personality traits and teaching practices, personality traits and stress or burnout, and workload and stress or burnout. The P-value is not calculated to evaluate the correlation’s statistical significance, given that it is significantly affected by sample size. Since the data set is small, the findings of this pilot study are exploratory and preliminary and should not be used to make generalised conclusions or predictions.
Interpretation of the Pearson correlation coefficient r value
Pearson’s r ranges from -1 to +1, with +1 indicating a perfect positive correlation and -1 indicating a perfect negative correlation. A value of 0 indicates that there is no interpretable correlation. Although the precise cutoffs vary, usually 0 to 0.2 indicates a very weak or negligible correlation, 0.2 to 0.4 a weak correlation, 0.4 to 0.6 a moderate correlation, 0.6 to 0.8 a strong correlation, and 0.8 to 1 a very strong correlation.
RESULT
Personality traits and teaching practices
Before we look at the correlation between personality traits and teaching practices, let us first have a look at the similarities and differences in respondents’ personality traits and their implications for the design of the questionnaire of the main study.
Similarities and differences in personality traits
| Six respondents | Descriptive statistics | ||||||||||
| Question number | Personality traits | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Mean | Median | Range | Standard deviation |
| 1R, 6 | Extraversion | 10 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 7.00 | 7.50 | 7.00 | 2.76 |
| 2,7R | Agreeableness | 8 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 7.67 | 8.00 | 3.00 | 1.03 |
| 3R, 8 | Conscientiousness | 9 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 7.17 | 7.00 | 3.00 | 1.17 |
| 4R, 9 | Neuroticism | 5 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 5.67 | 5.50 | 5.00 | 1.75 |
| 5R, 10 | Openness | 6 | 10 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 8 | 7.33 | 7.50 | 7.00 | 2.66 |
Table 2: Descriptive statistical analysis of personality traits
The scores for each personality trait can range from two to ten points. The difference between mean and median in the above table ranges from 0.17 to 0.5, which is not substantial, indicating that whether we compare individual scores with mean or median makes little difference. The degree to which respondents’ scores deviate from the median or mean shows how much or little they exhibit that personality trait. In the case of extraversion, for example, respondent one who scored ten is more extroverted than respondent five who scored three. And, given that the mean or median is around seven, we can conclude that the former is significantly more extroverted than the latter and well above the average. In the case of neuroticism, on the other hand, the lower the score, the better the emotional stability. Respondent five (three points), for example, reported greater emotional stability than respondent three (eight points). And it is reasonable to consider respondents who scored around the mean and median (-1 and +1) to be roughly average. Individuals who scored two points over or below the mean or median are more likely or less likely to show certain personality traits compared to the average.
Table 2 shows that the six respondents generally differed in their extraversion and openness to new experiences and challenges, as evidenced by the significantly higher standard deviations (SDs) of these two personalities’ scores compared to the other personalities. The standard deviation (SD) calculates the scores’ dispersion from the mean. The SD will be minimal when all six scores are close to the mean. The SD of these six scores will be high if they have a wide score range, which suggests that they are far from the mean. Because there is a significantly greater range between the individual scores and the averages for extraversion and openness than there is for the other three personality qualities, their SDs are higher.
The notable variation in openness observed above may be associated with the respondents’ cultural backgrounds. Respondents who voluntarily disclosed their personal information represented at least three regions: East Asia, Europe, and the United States. East Asia, when compared to other regions, has the lowest score for being open to new experiences (Schmitt et al., 2007, p.201). As personality traits are influenced by cultures and the main study explores the relationship between personality traits and teaching practices, the impact of respondents’ cultural backgrounds on their teaching practices should be considered in the main study.
Interestingly, among the five personality traits, six respondents all scored high in agreeableness, and the scores showed the least dispersion from the mean, as evidenced by the mean (7.67) and median (8) of agreeableness being the highest and the SD being the lowest. It is not surprising that all respondents have high agreeableness, which indicates a high level of empathy and support because teaching languages requires teachers to be supportive of their students’ learning.
The relationship between personality traits and teaching practices
To understand whether there is indeed a potential correlation between teaching practices and personality traits and examine the construct validity of the questionnaire to see whether the questions designed to measure certain aspects of teaching practices indeed had worked that way, I plotted a correlation matrix for personality traits and teaching practices.
Figure 1: The correlation matrix based on the self-reported scores of the five personality traits and those of the 15 teaching practices.
In Figure 1, the different shades of blue indicate a negative correlation, and the different shades of brown or red indicate a positive correlation. As we can see from the first five columns of the matrix, question 18 has no interpretable correlation with neuroticism, and eight (Q15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 27, 29) out of the 15 teaching practices are negatively correlated (r < 0) with the personality traits assumed to be relevant. Only six teaching practices (Q20, 22, 24, 25, 26, and 28) are positively correlated with the personality traits assumed to be relevant. However, the correlation between neuroticism (emotional stability) and Q20, conscientiousness and Q22, and extraversion and Q28 is so weak that it is negligible. Only teaching practices (Q25, 26, and 24) assumed to be associated with openness showed a moderate (r = 0.47, 0.6) to strong (r = 0.71) positive correlation.
In conclusion, except for openness’s case, teaching practices and the personality traits assumed to be relevant showed a negative to negligible positive correlation. Interestingly enough, there is a correlation between openness and 14 out of the 15 teaching practices measured; of those, 10 have a moderate to strong positive correlation with it, and one (Q18) has a strong negative correlation (r = -0.69) with it. Question 18 measured whether teachers experience anger or frustration while teaching. As the negative correlation based on this tiny dataset shows, the more open one is, the less anger or frustration one has when teaching. It is most likely due to the fact that being more open allows one to be more understanding of any challenges that may arise in the classroom. In addition, question 20 assessed the teachers’ comfort level in enforcing classroom regulations. The ability to recognise one’s own feelings and maintain emotional equilibrium in challenging settings is known as emotionality, one of the sub-traits of openness. It helps explain why question 20 has a very strong positive correlation (r = 0.83) with it.
The correlation matrix (Figure 1) showed that, with the exception of openness, the hypothesis that various teaching methods are associated with particular personality qualities did not hold up. There could be a few reasons for this. One plausible reason is that there isn’t enough data in the dataset to demonstrate a meaningful relationship between personality traits and teaching practices. On the other hand, it is also possible that some teaching practices may indeed have nothing to do with particular personality traits. It may also suggest that other variables interact with personality traits to influence teaching practices. For instance, one respondent said that the module descriptor restricted their options to vary their assessment methods. In addition, the workload, which we are going to have a look at the next, could also play a part in this. The implications of this on the main study are that it should be conducted on a much larger scale to investigate any relationship between personality traits and teaching practices and that questions such as whether respondents are allowed to alter their methods of assessments or teaching should be included in the questionnaire to capture additional variables that interact with personality traits.
Furthermore, the correlation matrix also showed that questions designed to measure different aspects of teaching practices may have measured the same thing. For example, the correlation between Q15 (willingness to foster a student-centred classroom) and Q23 (the use of assessment data or feedback to inform teaching practices) is very strong (r = 0.85), which may indicate that these two questions are measuring similar constructs or concepts, such as how reflective the teachers are, which implies that, in order to guarantee the validity of the construct, the primary study may need to amend the questionnaire if necessary. Nevertheless, the conclusion drawn here is preliminary and exploratory, considering the limited sample size.
The relationship between personality traits, workload and stress or burnout
Q30: How would you describe your workload?
Q31. How often do you feel stressed or burnt out due to your workload?
Figure 2: Correlation matrix of five personality traits, workload, and stress or burnout.
Figure 2 shows that the relationship between neuroticism and stress or burnout is only weakly positive. On the contrary, numerous studies have found a strong positive correlation between these two variables, though not without counter-studies (Angelini, 2023).
Moreover, the dataset showed a very strong correlation (r = 0.90) between openness and stress or burnout, in contrast to most studies that found a negative link between openness and job burnout. The relationship between burnout and personality traits in academia, was also examined in Ghorpade et al. (2007) study, which used data from 265 instructors at a large state university and discovered a positive correlation between openness and emotional exhaustion. According to this study, this could be related to the work that instructors do; for instance, instructors who ‘encourage and are willing to listen to students’ diverse positions may find such efforts turned against them in student evaluations, which leads to the draining of emotional energy’ (Ghorpade et al., 2007, p.253).
Korean language scholars often face similar situations. Korean is a language that has a completely different writing and grammar system than the languages known to students. Learning new Korean grammar structures and vocabulary highly relies on students’ prior knowledge. Even two weeks of lag in grammar and vocabulary due to absences can cause a domino effect. As a result, language instructors must closely monitor students’ progress by implementing regular quizzes or other formative assessments to help students reflect on their learning regularly, which can be stressful for students and may be reflected in some students’ evaluations that do not recognise instructors’ investment in the students’ growth, resulting in emotional exhaustion among teachers.
Furthermore, when students fall behind, teachers are often expected or even demanded to respond to students’ emotional and academic needs, which contributes to an increased workload, which significantly contributes to stress or burnout, as evidenced in the very strong correlation (r = 0.88) between self-reported workload (Q30) and stress or burnout (Q31). As a result of stress or burnout, five respondents said they are less creative in designing teaching materials, and one reported enjoying teaching Korean less than previously.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the dataset suggested that most of the teaching practices examined in this study could be linked to openness. Moreover, contrary to studies that found a negative correlation between openness and stress or burnout, this small set of data reveals a potential correlation between them. Furthermore, heavy workload has a strong positive correlation with stress or burnout, which has a negative impact on teaching practices; the majority of respondents reported being less creative in their teaching design when experiencing these conditions.
This pilot study has also shown that teaching practices can, however, be influenced by other factors too, for example, cultural backgrounds and whether teachers have the authority to amend assessments and teaching methods, etc. This implies that the questionnaire for the main study needs to capture all the above factors. Moreover, the strong correlation between some questions used to assess different aspects of teaching practices showed that these questions may have captured the same or similar aspects of teaching. This implies that the validity of the questionnaire needs to be carefully examined and enhanced for the main study.
Despite certain limitations, the implications of this pilot study for individuals and institutions are not negligible. Language scholars may share good teaching practices for one to learn from another. However, it is vital for individuals and institutions to recognise that teaching practices are multifactorial, and it’s crucial for them to work together to take a variety of factors into account and co-design a system to support the development of language scholars, particularly in the areas where changes are desired.
Address for correspondence: [email protected]
REFERENCES
Angelini, G. 2023. Big five model personality traits and job burnout: a systematic literature review. BMC Psychology. 11(1).
Ghorpade, J., Lackritz, J. and Singh, G. 2007. Burnout and Personality. Journal of Career Assessment. 15(2), pp.240-256.
Kell, H.J. 2019. Do Teachers’ Personality Traits Predict Their Performance? A Comprehensive Review of the Empirical Literature From 1990 to 2018. ETS Research Report Series. 2019(1), pp.1-27.
Kim, L.E., Jörg, V. and Klassen, R.M. 2019. A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Teacher Personality on Teacher Effectiveness and Burnout. Educational Psychology Review. 31(1), pp.163-195.
Klassen, R.M. and Tze, V.M.C. 2014. Teachers’ self-efficacy, personality, and teaching effectiveness: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review. 12, pp.59-76.
Lee, S. and Klein, H.J. 2002. Relationships between conscientiousness, self-efficacy, self-deception, and learning over time. Journal of Applied Psychology. 87(6), pp.1175-1182.
Mercer, S. 2018. Psychology for language learning: Spare a thought for the teacher. Language Teaching. 51(4), pp.504–525.
Rammstedt, B. and John, O.P. 2007. Measuring personality in one minute or less: A 10-item short version of the Big Five Inventory in English and German. Journal of Research in Personality. 41(1), pp.203-212.
Scheepers, R.A., Lombarts, K.M.J.M.H., van Aken, M.A.G., Heineman, M.J. and Arah, O.A. 2014. Personality Traits Affect Teaching Performance of Attending Physicians: Results of a Multi-Center Observational Study. PLoS ONE. 9(5), p.e98107.
Schmitt, D.P., Allik, J., McCrae, R.R. and Benet-Martínez, V. 2007. The Geographic Distribution of Big Five Personality Traits. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 38(2), pp.173-212.
Songbatumis, A. 2017. Challenges in Teaching English Faced by English Teachers at MTsN Taliwang, Indonesia. Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. 2(2).
Üstüner, M. 2017. Personality and Attitude towards Teaching Profession: Mediating Role of Self Efficacy. Journal of Education and Training Studies. 5(9), p.70.
Zhang, L. 2007. Do personality traits make a difference in teaching styles among Chinese high school teachers? Personality and Individual Differences. 43(4), pp.669-679.
APPENDICES
Full Questionnaire
1. What is your age?
18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55 or above
2. What is your gender?
Woman
Man
Non-binary
Prefer not to say
3. How many years of Korean language teaching experience do you have?
Less than 1 year
1-3 years
4-6 years
7-10 years
More than 10 years
4. Have you received any formal training in pedagogy in general or Korean language teaching?
Yes
No
5. I see myself as someone who is reserved.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
6. I see myself as someone who is generally trusting.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
7. I see myself as someone who tends to be lazy.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
8. I see myself as someone who is relaxed, handles stress well.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
9. I see myself as someone who has few artistic interests.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
10. I see myself as someone who is outgoing, sociable.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
11. I see myself as someone who tends to find fault with others.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
12. I see myself as someone who does a thorough job.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
13. I see myself as someone who gets nervous easily.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
14. I see myself as someone who has an active imagination.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
15. I provide help to students who struggle in class.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
16. I accommodate different learning paces and needs of my students.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
17. I am willing to collaborate with students to co-create learning experiences.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
18. I experience negative emotions such as anger or frustration while teaching.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
19. I am comfortable managing difficult or confrontational situations with students in a calm and professional manner.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
20. I am comfortable with implementing disciplines for the classrooms.
Disagree strongly
Disagree a little
Neither agree nor disagree
Agree a little
Agree strongly
21. I provide regular feedback to students on their progress.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
22. I often vary the assessment methods to measure student learning outcome.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
23. I use assessment data or feedback collected from students to inform my teaching practice.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
24. I try out new teaching approaches/methods to teach Korean.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
25. I look for new and innovative ways to incorporate technology into my lessons.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
26. I modify my teaching materials to suit students’ needs and interests to a great extent.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
27. I encourage and facilitate student interactions in peer/group activities in the classroom.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
28. I interact with students in an energetic and enthusiastic way quite often.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
29. I am comfortable speaking in front of students.
Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Always
30. How would you describe your workload?
Very light
Light
Moderate
Heavy
Very heavy
31. How often do you feel stressed or burnt out due to your workload?
Never
Rarely
Occasionally
Often
Almost always
32. How does feeling stressed or burnt out affect your teaching practice?
I am less patient with my students.
I am less creative in my lesson planning and teaching materials developing.
I don’t enjoy Korean teaching as much as I usually did.
33. How do you describe the effectiveness of your teaching?
Highly effective
Somewhat effective
Neutral
Somewhat ineffective
Highly ineffective
I don’t know.
34. When looking back, what kind of resources have contributed to the development of your knowledge and/or skills in teaching Korean?
Learn from more experienced colleagues
Students’ feedback
Self-reflection
Professional training programmes
Academic research input
(Online/offline) workshop/lectures/courses
35. To what extent are you currently seeking out opportunities to further improve your teaching skills?
Never
Rarely
Occasionally
Often
Almost always
[1] I thank Dr. Martin Lamb, a senior lecturer from the School of Education at the University of Leeds, for his insightful and thorough comments on this article, especially for his suggestion of using a correlation matrix to present the data. And many thanks to Dr. Priscila Riffo-Salgado and Dr. Peter Hart from the School of Education at the University of Leeds, for their suggestions on the development of the questionnaire to be used in the main study.
[2] The content in the round brackets was added by the author of this article.