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Soft Skills, Personality, and Work Motivation of Secondary School Teachers: A Review of Related Literature
Subject area: Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities · Area of research: Educational Psychology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I6-1712993
Abstract
The definition of effective teaching in 21st-century high school environments has evolved away from solely what teachers know (pedagogical content knowledge) toward an increasingly sophisticated definition that now includes various "soft skills," or interpersonal, emotional, and cognitive competencies. This literature review serves to explore the triadic relationship between teachers' soft skills, personality traits, and work motivation in the secondary school context. Although a significant portion of this review is built from empirical research conducted in India, including Bi and Sareen (2018) and Sharma, Sharma, Jain, and Sharma (2022), the contents of this literature review are synthesized from a broad range of international research, in order to provide an integrated framework for understanding how personality dispositions and motivation workplaces will enable teachers to develop and employ soft skills. The synthesis of all of the empirical studies indicates that soft skills cannot be viewed in isolation; rather, soft skills are an integral part of a teacher's psychological profile. Specifically, the synthesis demonstrates that personality traits such as conscientiousness and extraversion serve as behavioural anchors for the development and application of soft skills. Additionally, the intrinsic drive for work motivation serves as a catalyst for teachers to deploy soft skills. The literature review concludes with three key areas of teacher effectiveness in the secondary school, specifically communication, emotional intelligence, and adaptability.
Keywords
Soft Skills, Secondary Education, Teacher Personality, Work Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Teaching Effectiveness
How to cite this paper
@article{1712993,
author = {Parul Tyagi, Dr. Shivani Yadav},
title = {Soft Skills, Personality, and Work Motivation of Secondary School Teachers: A Review of Related Literature},
journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
year = {2025},
volume = {9},
number = {6},
pages = {1453-1459},
issn = {2456-8880},
url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1712993.pdf},
abstract = {The definition of effective teaching in 21st-century high school environments has evolved away from solely what teachers know (pedagogical content knowledge) toward an increasingly sophisticated definition that now includes various "soft skills," or interpersonal, emotional, and cognitive competencies. This literature review serves to explore the triadic relationship between teachers' soft skills, personality traits, and work motivation in the secondary school context. Although a significant portion of this review is built from empirical research conducted in India, including Bi and Sareen (2018) and Sharma, Sharma, Jain, and Sharma (2022), the contents of this literature review are synthesized from a broad range of international research, in order to provide an integrated framework for understanding how personality dispositions and motivation workplaces will enable teachers to develop and employ soft skills. The synthesis of all of the empirical studies indicates that soft skills cannot be viewed in isolation; rather, soft skills are an integral part of a teacher's psychological profile. Specifically, the synthesis demonstrates that personality traits such as conscientiousness and extraversion serve as behavioural anchors for the development and application of soft skills. Additionally, the intrinsic drive for work motivation serves as a catalyst for teachers to deploy soft skills. The literature review concludes with three key areas of teacher effectiveness in the secondary school, specifically communication, emotional intelligence, and adaptability.},
keywords = {Soft Skills, Secondary Education, Teacher Personality, Work Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Teaching Effectiveness},
month = {December},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I6-1712993}
}