Birds of a feather: students’ preferences for lecturers’ personalities as predicted by their own personality and learning approaches

Four-hundred and twenty-four students completed the Big Five (NEO-FFI: Costa & McCrae, 1992) and approaches to learning (Study Process Questionnaire: Biggs, 1987) scales, and rated the personality facets they desired in a good lecturer/professor. In general, students tended most to prefer lecturers who were emotionally stable (low in Neuroticism) and conscientious. However, correlations between students’ and their preferred lecturers’ personality characteristics revealed that students tended to prefer lecturers similar to themselves in all personality traits except Neuroticism, and particularly for Openness and Conscientiousness. Personality variables showed consistent incremental validity over age and gender in predicting students’ preferences, whereas learning approaches provided very modest additional information. Implications and recommendations for future studies are discussed.