Nowadays, as a means of supplying the market with a highly qualified workforce, vocational teachers play a significant role in Lithuania’s educational system. It is assumed that the most important factor determining the quality of education is the teacher. Undoubtedly, the vocational teacher’s personality traits and their work motivation are considered to be important components of a successful educational process. Aim: this study was carried out in order to detect the relationship between the vocational teachers’ personality traits and their work motivation. Method: The personality traits were evaluated using the Big Five Inventory (BFI; John et al., 1991, 2008) while the work motivation was assessed by employment of the Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale (MWMS; Gagne et al., 2015). 364 teachers from various Lithuania’s vocational schools participated in the research (243 of them were women, 93 men, while 10 did not specify their gender). Results: The study revealed that a greater expression of neuroticism correlated with an increase of the teachers’ motivation (p < .01), extrinsic (social and material) regulation (p < .01) and introjected regulation (p < .05), although the identified regulation (p < .05) and intrinsic motivation (p < .01) were observed to decrease. Meanwhile, with the increase of the teachers’ expression of extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, intrinsic motivation (p < .01) and identified regulation (p < .01) heightened, and the extrinsic (material) motivation decreased (in case of extraversion and agreeableness – p < .01, in case of conscientiousness and openness to experience – p < .05). Moreover, the differences of work motivation noticed among various personality profiles were added to the results of the research. [...]

Psychological adjustment is considered as significant variable that affects employee’s behaviour and reactions in the implementation of changes in organization. The common features of organization and individual psychological characteristics of employee lead to a better or worse psychological adjustment to changes in the organization. In the analysis of the employees’ individual reactions to changes are important personality traits that are associated with psychological adjustment to changes. Employees with different personality traits may react differently to the same situations or changes in the workplace. The purpose of this article – to assess the relationships between employees’ personality traits and psychological adjustment to economic crisis caused organizational changes. The study was conducted in 2009, a period when almost all organizations in Lithuania were affected by the economic crisis. The subjects of the study were 110 employees, 54 (40 women and 14 men) working in stock company and 56 (18 women and 38 men) working in public service. Methods. Personality traits were assessed by NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), which consist of 240 items and measure the five personality traits: Neuroticism (Cronbach α - 0,90), Extraversion (Cronbach α – 0,88), Openness to experience (Cronbach α – 0,77), Agreeableness (Cronbach α – 0,82), and Conscientiousness (Cronbach α – 0,88). Psychological adjustment to change was identified by two scales: Reaction to Organizational Change Scale (developed 2009 by Buksnyte ir A.Ciunyte) and Coping with Organizational Change Scale (Judge et.al., 1999). Reaction to Organizational Change Scale (Cronbach α – 0,78) consists of 17 items and measures the employees’ responsiveness to the organizational changes during the economic crisis in Lithuania. [...]

Problema. Mokymo praktikos sėkmė ir mokytojų gerovė daugiausia priklauso ne tik nuo mokymo turinio, bet ir nuo mokytojų asmenybės ypatumų. Be to, mokytojų suvokimas apie savo profesiją, save ir kitus su ta profesija susijusius žmones lemia ugdymo kokybę. Todėl keliama prielaida, kad mokytojų asmenybės bruožai yra vieni svarbiausių veiksnių, turinčių reikšmę mokytojų profesiniam identitetui, kuris neabejotinai yra mokytojų psichologinės gerovės sąlyga. Tyrimo tikslas – ištirti profesijos pedagogų asmenybės bruožų prognostinę vertę jų profesinio identiteto prognozei Lietuvoje. Tyrimo metodai. Imtį sudarė 346 Lietuvos profesinio mokymo sistemoje dirbantys pedagogai. „Didžiojo penketo“ inventorius (BFI, Benet-Martinez ir John, 1998; John, Donahue ir Kentle, 1991, John, Naumann ir Soto, 2008) buvo naudotas profesijos pedagogų asmenybės bruožams įvertinti. Profesijos mokytojų profesinis identitetas buvo matuojamas naudojant Mokytojų profesinio identiteto klausimyną (Beijaard, Verloop ir Vermunt, 2000). Rezultatai. Profesijos mokytojų profesinį identitetą reikšmingai prognozuoja tokie asmenybės bruožai, kaip sąžiningumas ir atvirumas patyrimui. Taip pat analizuojami profesijos mokytojų profesinio identiteto atskirų komponentų (profesiniai vaidmenys: dalyko ekspertas, didaktikos ekspertas ir pedagogikos ekspertas) sąsajos su asmenybės bruožais. Išvada. Rezultatai patvirtina profesijos mokytojų asmenybės bruožų svarbą jų profesiniam identitetui. Rezultatai gali padėti mokslininkams gilinti supratimą apie mokytojų asmenybės svarbą jų gerovei. Tyrimo rezultatai taip pat gali padėti mokytojams geriau suprasti jų profesinį identitetą.

In the realm of empirical research, it is known that personality traits and cognitive style are related. However, still remain unanswered questions (for example, the results are contradictory about the relationship between neuroticism and cognitive style; also, there is no answer to the question of whether agreeableness is related to cognitive style). Furthermore, although the empirical studies of relationships between personality traits and cognitive style were carried out in various countries, a lack of replicability remains in Lithuania. Purpose. The aim of this study was to reveal some relationships between employees’ personality traits and their cognitive style. Materials and methods. Research participants were 110 employees (58 females and 52 males), who responded to the Kirton’s Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) and NEO-PI-R Inventory. Results and conclusions. The results indicated, that openness to experience is related to innovative cognitive style in the group/rule conformity domain, as well as extraversion in the originality dimension. Also, agreeableness and conscientiousness had substantial negative correlation with the total KAI score, indicating that adaptors are more agreeable as well as more conscientious than innovators. Neuroticism is related to adaptive cognitive style in the originality dimension as well as extraversion in the e,ciency domain. The results of binary logistic regression indicated that extraversion is the predictor of innovative cognitive style while conscientiousness is the predictor of adaptive cognitive style.