The relationship between proactive personality traits and attitudes towards the profession and career development desires of classroom teachers: The case of Elazığ province

The general aim of this study is to determine the proactive personality levels and attitudes towards the profession and career development desires of the classroom teachers working in the city center of Elazig and to determine the relationship between them. Relational screening model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. The universe of the study is 1650 classroom teachers working in official primary schools in Elazig city center. The sample of the study consisted of a total of 547 classroom teachers, 223 of whom were women and 324 of whom were men, working in Elazig province in the 2019-2020 academic year. In this study, the Personal Information Form for measuring the demographic information of the participants, the "Abbreviated Proactive Personality Scale" developed by Bateman and Crant (1993) and adapted to Turkish by Akın, Abacı, Kaya and Arıcı (2011) to measure their professional attitudes and career development desires "Professional Attitude and Career Development Desires Scale (PACDDS)" developed by Watt and Ricardson (2008) and adapted to Turkish by Eren and Tezel (2010) were used to measure. Since the data in the study showed a parametric structure, t-test for paired comparisons, One-Way Analysis of Variance for multiple comparisons, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Analysis were used for the relationship status. When the results of the study are examined; It was seen that the classroom teachers gave the answers corresponding to the shortened Proactive Personality Scale and the "I agree" range of the PACDDS Scale. It wasn't identified any significant differences between the proactive personality levels of the classroom teachers and their gender, marital status, education level, grade level, education region, but it was found that there was a significant difference according to the duration of the task. No significant difference was found between PACDDS level and marital status, class level, duration of duty of teachers, but it was found that there was a significant difference according to variables of gender, education level, and education region. In the study, it was found that there is a positive and moderate relationship between the Proactive Personality levels of the classroom teachers and PACDDS. It has been determined that there is a positive and moderate relationship with the proactive personality levels of the classroom teachers with the planned effort from the sub-dimensions of the PACDDS scale, positive and moderate with the planned persistence, positive and moderate with the desire for professional development, positive and very weak with the desire for leadership.