Emotional intelligence and teaching situations: Development of a new measure

This article reports on the development of a new measure entitled: Reactions to Teaching Situations to indicate levels of emotional intelligence among beginning teachers. This article discusses the concept of emotional intelligence and defends the development of such a measure specifically related to the situations in the teaching environment, an environment where emotional intelligence is considered to influence a teachers' thoughts and actions. The measure was found to have acceptable reliability and a range of individual differences was reported. Gender differences were found where female teachers reported greater likelihood of demonstrating emotional intelligence compared to male teachers. There was partial support for the four branch model of emotional intelligence. The discussion includes some projections for these findings and for the use of this measure with more experienced teachers.

Introduction

Pearman (2002) sets out the four basic assumptions about emotional intelligence favoured by writers such as Goleman (1998) and McCall (1998). These can be summarised as follows:

• Emotions contain important, practical information about yourself and others. Managing this information is essential to personal well-being and to building relationships.

• Identifying, assessing, and expressing your emotions in appropriate ways enriches your experiences.

• Acknowledging, empathising with, and facilitating the emotional expression of yourself and others enhances your relationships.

• Emotions play out in your private life and public roles to produce well-being, leadership and flow - the experience of focussed, blissful expenditure of energy - or to result in distress, distraction, and being emotionally overwhelmed. (Pearman, 2002, p.11).

The nature of the varying views about the concept and attempts to measure it, led Caruso, Mayer & Salovey (2002) to develop an ability model of emotional intelligence which asserts that a person's skill in recognising emotional information and carrying out abstract reasoning using the emotional information can be measured. Mayer & Salovey (1997) outline that emotional intelligence involves the "abilities to perceive, appraise and express emotion; to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; to understand emotion and emotional knowledge, and to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth" (p.10).

The definition sets out four different abilities or skills, which Mayer & Salovey refer to as branches. Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey (1999) and Roberts, Zeidner, & Matthews (2001) have provided empirical support for the four-branch model, employing the Multifactor Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS).

Caruso, Mayer & Salovey (2002) have provided evidence of the discriminant validity of their emotional intelligence construct (based on the four branch model), establishing its separation from measures of career interests, personality and social behaviour. They assert that "emotional intelligence should be viewed as broadening our understanding of human mental abilities" (p. 318).

Caruso, Mayer & Salovey (2002) discuss the four branches in the following way:

The first branch of the ability model is Identifying Emotions. It includes skills such as the ability to identify feelings, express emotions accurately and differentiate between real and phony emotional expressions.

The second branch, Emotional Facilitation of Thought (Using Emotions), includes skills such as the ability to use emotions to redirect attention to important events; to generate emotions that facilitate decision making; to use mood swings as a means to consider multiple points of view, and to harness different emotions to encourage different approaches to problem solving.

The third branch, Understanding Emotions, is the ability to understand complex, emotions and emotional "chains", how emotions transition from one stage to another, the ability to recognise the causes of emotions, and the ability to understand relations among emotions.

The fourth branch of the ability model is Managing Emotions. This includes the ability to stay aware of one's emotions, even those that are unpleasant; the ability to determine whether an emotion is clear or typical; and the ability to solve emotion-laden problems without necessarily suppressing negative emotions. ( p. 307).

Jordan (2000) notes that emotions are present within aspects of organisational life and "should be raised to a surface of awareness" (p. 2). Emotions should also be controlled to "ensure that working relationships are maintained" (p. 2). Thus an understanding of the construct of emotional intelligence gives us the capability to better understand personal interactions in work settings. Whilst Jordan's focus is on the business workplace, equal focus can be made on the school as a workplace and on the interactions between teachers and students and teachers and their colleagues. As Boyatzis, Goleman & Rhee (2000) conclude there is a need for more research "to understand how our emotions and capabilities affect our lives and work" (p. 359). Such understanding can only prepare more effective teachers in a profession that relies on the ability to establish good relationships with others.

As already noted, interest in emotional intelligence has begun to emerge in the field of education. Change in current educational paradigms has encouraged a focus beyond that of the gaining of content knowledge and facts to now include learning as the core business of schools, the 'glue' of schools. Although even as far back as Dewey (1933), this intent was evident.

When the teacher fixes his [sic] attention exclusively on such matters as these (the acquisition of skills and knowledge), the process of forming underlying and permanent habits, attitudes and interests are overlooked. Yet the formation of the latter is more important for the future. (p.58).

Ritchhart (nd) asserts that emotions can shape, and as well, can inhibit, our thinking. As such emotions provide our first interpretation of a new situation and can then influence how we think about and react to, that situation (Goleman, 1995).

As educators, this study grows from our interest in individual differences, and while we might focus on that aspect in regard to how all people are alike; how some people are alike; or how all people are unique (Revelle, 1995), in regard to emotional intelligence it is the second of these aspects that is the focus in this study. We are concerned primarily with emotional intelligence as " a quantitative spectrum of individual differences …. Such that people can be rank ordered in terms of how much emotional intelligence they possess" (Matthews et al, 2002, p.22).

Objectives of the study

One may ask why another measure of emotional intelligence is needed and whether the existing measures are sufficient. We believe that situational factors can play a significant role in cognition and behaviour. The available measures seem to reflect generalised "trait" factors rather than "state" factors which vary across situations. Also it appears that the more generalised the measure the less likely it may be have relevance for particular groups. Therefore the present measure was planned to refer to aspects of teaching normally experienced by teachers and in the context of particular situations where emotional intelligence might be presumed to operate.

Participants

Procedure

The six alternative reaction responses were developed as follows:

• one for each of the four hypothesised branches of emotional intelligence,
• one for a response considered likely for a person with low emotional intelligence (using a list created by Hein, 2000),
• and an alternative that was unrelated to emotional intelligence. Alternatives were randomly presented to the ten different situations.

The situations were presented in a random order and were described as follows:

1. One of your students, whose learning is generally slow and erratic, has just made a breakthrough and has acquired a concept you have been teaching for some time.

2. A parent has lodged a formal complaint about your teaching methods which you feel is totally unjustified and blown out of all proportion. Moreover you are unsure about how "just" the Principal will be in handling this issue.

3. Your students are actively involved in their group work, but you sense that a few are taking advantage of you, and becoming noisy and unproductive.

4. Your level coordinator calls you in and says:" Your student assessments have been too generous, and you need to do them all again".

5. A student, who has the reputation of being difficult to handle, loses it totally on an excursion where you are in charge, and puts on a temper tantrum.

6. A student, who has recently made a special effort with a piece of work, says: "You are the best teacher I've ever had".

7. Your initial ideas have been highly valued and adopted in practice by your teaching team.

8. You find that you were not included in a staff group invitation to go for drinks after school.

9. While on yard duty you hear one students making a negative comment about a student from a racial group to which you also belong.

10. In your most recent performance review, your team leader gives you very positive feedback and states your performance has exceeded expectation.

The cohort's responses to the Reactions to Teaching Situations measure

The mean score was 136.78 with a standard deviation of 11.74, a range from the lowest score of 101 to the highest score of 168. Skewness was calculated as -.11 and kurtosis was -.01.

The distribution is shown in Figure 1 and demonstrates the wide range of individual differences in total emotional intelligence scores.

Figure 1: Distribution of total Emotional Intelligence scores

The total emotional intelligence scale has very substantial correlations with the four branch components ranging from 0.72 to 0.82. All correlations are statistically different from zero. The Understanding Emotions branch score has the highest relationship with the total scale, whilst Using Emotions has the lowest of the set.

The alpha reliabilities of the four branch scores were calculated as follows: Identifying Emotions (10 items) 0.56, Using Emotions (9 items) 0.57, Understanding Emotions (10 items) 0.61, and Managing Emotions (9 items) 0.57. These appear to satisfactory reliabilities for an exploratory study.

Table 1 shows that each of the four branch scores inter-correlate significantly with each other, but the correlation between Using Emotions and Identifying Emotions is the lowest of the set. Other branch inter-correlations are at similar levels explaining about 25% of the variance in one by taking the other into consideration.

	Emotional intelligence	Identifying	Using	Understanding	Managing
Identifying	0.74***	1.00	0.27***	0.51***	0.47***
Using	0.72***	0.27***	1.00	0.50***	0.53***
Understanding	0.82***	0.51***	0.50***	1.00	0.47***
Managing	0.78***	0.47***	0.53***	0.47***	1.00
(*** p<.001)

The relative values of the mean scores for the four branch scores is depicted in Figure 2, and it is clear that managing emotions and using emotions have higher mean likelihood scores than the other scales.

Figure 2: Comparison of mean scores on the four branch emotional intelligence scores

To examine relationships with demographic values, splits were made at the 20th, 40th, 60th and 80th percentiles of the total emotional intelligence scale to produce a five point emotional intelligence index scale. Chi-squares of total index score were computed with each of the categorical variables. Of these comparisons, only the relationship between the emotional intelligence index and gender was statistically significant. The chi-square result for index/gender was 31.49, 4 df, p<.000. Inspection showed that the highest proportion of males had level 1 on the index score compared with females, where the highest proportion was at level 4 scores.

The chi-squares for index/faculty, index/age group and index/teaching focus were all not statistically significant.

Exploratory factor analysis

A principal components analysis produced 11 factors with eigen values greater than one, but the scree test suggested that only four of these should be rotated to obtain a simple structure. The four factors rotated to a varimax solution accounted for 33.56% of total variance. Only one item, out of the 37, had loadings greater than .30 on more than one factor (item 4.6). These were on Factors 3 and 4.

In this discussion items are coded to relate to the hypothesised four branches, as follows : Identifying Emotions (ID), Using Emotions (US), Understanding Emotions (UN) and Managing Emotions (MA).

Factor 1 (eigen value 6.21, 16.77% of variance) had nine items with loadings greater than 0.50 and had no significant loadings on any other factor. The items were associated largely with three situations where positive emotions were expressed. The items come from a mix of all four branches, and are interpreted as a factor expressing general satisfaction responses.

10.2	I would realise that being recognised is often linked with feelings of satisfaction	US 0.68
10.4	I would feel reassured that the effort I had put in had paid off	US 0.66
10.5	I would be pleased and realise that such valuing can lead to growing as a person	MA 0.65
7.2	I would be happy that they understood my contribution	ID 0.64
7.3	I would be proud and want to use this in my performance review	MA 0.64
6.3	I would feel acknowledged	ID 0.63
7.1	I would know that my pleasure is often linked to feedback from others	UN 0.57
6.1	I would enjoy a feeling of pride and know that it would help me through difficult classroom situations in the future	MA 0.56
10.3	I would not be afraid to show my feelings of joy	ID 0.54

Factor 2 (eigen value 2.71, 7.33% of variance) had four items loading greater than 0.50, three of which were from the identifying emotions branch. All items express negative feelings likely to be threatening to self worth.

2.5	I would be feeling insecure in this situation	ID 0.71
2.6	I would remember that things like this tend to upset me	UN 0.70
3.3	I would feel trapped in such a situation	ID 0.67
8.3	I would feel upset that I had not been included	ID 0.54

Factor 3 (eigen value 1.95, 5.26% of variance) had five factors loading greater than 0.40 and consisted of items from the Understanding Emotions branch. They tend to link emotion to behaviour.

5.4	I would consider that any emotion I feel will soon pass	UN 0.64
6.6	I would know that my reaction to this comment is linked to my knowledge of learners	UN 0.57
3.1	I would realise that my feelings will affect what I do next	UN 0.42
1.4	I would consider my feelings reflected the part I played in this	UN 0.41
4.6	I would remember that my initial reaction may soon change into another feeling	UN 0.40

Factor 4 eigen value 1.56, 4.22% of variance) had five items loading greater than 0.40 and three of these were from the Using Emotions branch.

6.4	I would say that they did well because of their effort not mine	US 0.65
8.6	I would feel hurt but would make more of an effort to join the social interaction in the staffroom	MA 0.55
4.3	I would focus on the co-ordinator's concerns to see if there was any justification in the comment	US 0.53
4.6	I would remember that my initial reaction may soon change into another feeling	UN 0.45
8.5	I would remember my hurt response and include all the staff in my next Christmas function	US 0.40

As previously noted only one item had loadings in excess of 0.30 on two factors, all other items only had loadings in excess of 0.30 on a single factor.

This four factor solution provides partial support for the separation of the four branches, as three factors seemed to be aligned with each of three of the four branches. The other factor comprised a mixture of branches. The solution also suggests that the potency of the situation and its underlying dynamics may play an important part in any reaction.

Readers interested in a copy of the full analysis and the scree plot (not reproduced here for space reasons) are invited to contact the second author.

Discussion

The results presented here from the factorial structure of the new measure only provided partial support for the four branch model. The factor analysis did not produce a clear representation of the expected theoretical four branch model. Indeed the result confirms other research that the four branches often tend to collapse into three structures e.g. Matthews, Zeidner & Roberts (2002) reported that there is "only limited empirical support for a four branch model" (p. 192), and report data which suggests only three interpretable factors are found: emotional identification, emotion understanding and emotion management.

The gender difference found in the present study was strong and significant, and suggests that any research with this measure should take that difference into account. A search of the literature in this field supports the criticism by Matthews, Zeidner & Roberts, (2002 p.200) that opportunities to report on gender differences have been neglected. In fact the only reference found was in a study of the Schutte Self Report Inventory undertaken by Petrides & Furnham (2000). Those researchers reported a gender difference in females having higher social skills scores than males, but that there was no overall difference in total emotional intelligence scores on that inventory. This study was conducted in a faculty of education in an Australian university. An application of this measure with beginning teachers in a different cultural context could test the reliability of the findings related to gender differences.

The gender differential sensitivity to emotional intelligence reactions found in this study, should be followed up. If the current findings are taken into account, many male beginning teachers probably need coaching and deeper understanding about the emotional management of teaching situations, as do some female teachers. It maybe that pre-service teacher education courses should deal more explicitly with the concept of emotional intelligence and its development, and management in common teaching situations.

Exploring the concept of emotional intelligence is directly related to the understanding of teaching, motivation and self directed learning. The information that can be drawn from this study should help the debate about emotional intelligence to move from the broad and generalised to the more specific and productive. Situations involving emotional states are a familiar aspect of any school or classroom environment. For the classroom practitioner, understanding the impact that their own emotions and those of others have on the effectiveness of the teaching-learning context is important. Being able read the emotions of others is a key component of understanding students as individuals. This understanding is a key component of any process of self regulation.

Further and specific information about emotional intelligence should help the development of future intervention programs or emotion based curricular activities or support those already present in education.

This study suggests that further research is warranted with both pre-service and practising teachers. Following this study, it would be appropriate to survey more experienced teachers in order to assess whether levels of emotional intelligence are different between the two groups. This would give information about whether the experience of teaching also gives greater depth of experience in understanding and managing the emotional aspects of teaching and learning.

In addition, and as noted earlier in this report, further study is warranted in convergent and discriminant validity by exploring concepts related to emotional intelligence as defined here. It is relevant to ask what relation emotional intelligence has to the existing constructs of the several multiple intelligences proposed by Gardner (2000), and to the perception and decision making preferences in measures of psychological type indicated by Myers et al (1998), and whether the new measure bears any systematic relations to these widely used constructs.

References

Becahra, A., Tranel, D. & Damasio, A. (2000). Poor judgement in spite of high intellect: Neurological evidence for emotional intelligence. In R. Bar-On & J.D. Parker (Eds). The handbook of emotional intelligence: Theory, development, assessment and application at home, school and in the workplace. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Boyatzis,R., Goleman, D., & Rhee, K. (2000). Clustering competence in emotional intelligence: Insights from the emotional competence inventory. In R. Bar-On & J.D. Parker (Eds), The handbook of emotional intelligence: Theory, development, assessment and application at home, school and in the workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Caruso, D. R., Mayer, J. D. & Salovey, P. (2002). Relation of an ability measure of emotional intelligence to personality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 79(2), 306-320.

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think; A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (2000). Intelligence redefined: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York, Bantam Books.

Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.

Graczyk, P., Weissberg, R., Payton, J., Elias, M., Greenberg, M. & Zins, J. (2000). Criteria for evaluating the quality of school-based social and emotional learning programs. In R. Bar-On & J.D. Parker (Eds), The handbook of emotional intelligence: Theory, development, assessment and application at home, school and in the workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hargreaves, A. (2002). Emotions of Teaching. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Hein, S. (2000). The ten habits of high EQ people. http://eqi.org/summary.htm [accessed Nov 2002, verified 20 Mar 2004]

Jordan, P. J. (2000). Measuring emotional intelligence in the workplace: A comparison of self and peer ratings of emotional intelligence. Paper presented to the symposium : Emotional intelligence at work; Does it make a difference? Academy of Management 60th Annual Meeting, Toronto, August.

Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types. In Collected works: Vol. 6 (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Orginally published in German as Psychologische Typen. Rasher Verlag, Zurich, 1921).

Lawrence, G. (1998). Emotional intelligence: Does it develop differently in thinking types and feeling types? In Proceedings of the Conference: Counter attack; Rising to the challenges to education: The role of psychological type. Orlando, March 5-8.

Matthews, G., Zeidner, M. & Roberts, R (2002). Emotional intelligence: Science and myth. London, The MIT Press.

Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D. R., & Salovey, P. (1999). Emotional intelligence meets traditional standards for an intelligence. Intelligence, 27, 267-298.

Mayer, J. D. & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Implications for educators. (pp. 3-31). New York: Basic.

McCall, M. (1998). High flyers: Developing the next generation of leaders. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.

Myers, I. B., McCaulley, M. H., Quenk, N. L. & Hammer, A. L. (1998). MBTI Manual: A guide to the development and use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, 3e. Palo Alto: CPP.

Pearman, R. R. (2002). Introduction to type and emotional intelligence: Pathways to performance. Palo Alto: CPP.

Petrides, K. & Furnham, A. (2000). On the dimensional structure of emotional intelligence, Personality and individual differences, 29, 313-320.

Revelle, W. (1995). Personality processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 295-328.

Roberts, R. D., Zeidner, M., & Matthews, G. (2001). Does emotional intelligence meet traditional standards for an intelligence? Some new data and conclusions. Emotion, 1, 196-231.

Ritchhart, R. (undated). Of dispositions, attitudes, and habits: Exploring how emotions shape our thinking. Unpublished paper, Harvard Project Zero, Cambridge, Mass.

Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9, 185-211.

Authors: Dr Chris Perry is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education. She combines school based consultancies with lecturing and research in the area of individual's growth and development especially as it relates to the development of thinking and learning. A special focus of her research and consultancy is on the development of learning style and learners' problem-solving strategies. Email: perryac@deakin.edu.au Mr Ian Ball is currently a Faculty Fellow at Deakin University, and manages the Psychological Type Research Unit. Since retirement as an Associate Professor, he has been involved in conducting school reviews and contributing to a range of consultancies for education authorities. Email: gmagpa@bigpond.net.au Dr Elizabeth Stacey teaches and researches in the Faculty of Education at Deakin University particularly focussing on educational psychology as well as the use of computers and communication technologies in the curriculum. Please cite as: Perry, C., Ball, I. & Stacey, E. (2004). Emotional intelligence and teaching situations: Development of a new measure. Issues In Educational Research, 14(1), 29-43. http://www.iier.org.au/iier14/perry.html