The aim of the research is to define interrelations between career choice of vocational educators, components of teaching / learning strategies and the Big Five personality traits of an educator. The sample of the research is 346 educators of the Lithuanian vocational training system. The findings indicate that there are established dependency correlations between personality traits of an educator and quality features of educational curriculum components. The correlation showed that the greatest attention to quality teaching strategies is expressed by the educators, who are highly agreeable, conscientious and open to experience.

Pedagogų asmenybės įtaka ugdymui yra labai svarbi. Tam, kad būtų galima tiksliau nuspėti ir paaiškinti pedagogų elgseną, darbo rezultatus, pirmiausia būtina atsakyti į klausimą, kaip pedagogo asmenybės bruožai prognozuoja jų motyvaciją, t. y. ar asmenybės bruožai gali turėti įtakos pedagogo motyvacinei orientacijai. Asmenybės bruožai šiame straipsnyje įvardijami Didžiuoju penketu (NEO-FFI, Costa, McCrae, 2012), o motyvacinė orientacija (GMS-28; Guay et al., 2003) yra apibrėžiama remiantis savideterminacijos teorija (angl. Self-Determination theory, SDT). Tyrimo tikslas – ištirti pedagogų asmenybės bruožų įtaką motyvacinei orientacijai (SDT kontekste). Tyrimo metu tikrinama hipotezė – asmenybės bruožai daro įtaką savideterminacijai. Tyrime dalyvavo 241 pedagogas: iš jų 32 (13,3 proc.) vyrai, 206 (85,5 proc.) moterys, 3 (1,2 proc.) nenurodė lyties. Tyrimo rezultatai parodė, kad ne visi Didžiojo penketo bruožai turi įtakos pedagogų savideterminacijai. Taip pat prieita prie išvados, kad asmenybės bruožai didesnę įtaką daro vidinei motyvacijai ir kartu savideterminacijai nei išorinei motyvacijai ir motyvacijos stokai.

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. [...]

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.