10 Key Attributes Preschool Teachers Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Noah Smith

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Preschool teachers instruct preschool-aged children in activities designed to promote social, physical, and intellectual growth needed for primary school in preschool, day care center, or other child development facility. They may also be required to hold State certification. In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that preschool teachers, except those in special education, would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Having a strong preference for social work environments. Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 100%

Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 85%

Talking to others to convey information effectively.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 85%

The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 85%

Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 82.4%

Having a strong preference for artistic work environments. Artistic occupations frequently involve working with forms, designs and patterns. They often require self-expression and the work can be done without following a clear set of rules.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 81%

The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

Teaching others how to do something.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 80%