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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 869 – 874

5th World Conference on Educational Sciences - WCES 2013

Evaluation and development of students’ emotional competence

Constanta Dumitriu a *, Iulia Cristina Timofti b, Gheorghe Dumitriu c
a, b, c
“Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău, 157 Mărăşeşti Street, Bacău, 600115, Romania

Abstract

The study is interested in evaluating the level of emotional competence for students who chose a teaching career and it
recommends some efficient strategies of formative intervention. The research has been conducted on 210 students who are
preparing for the teaching profession and has set the following objectives: evaluating the level of students’ emotional intelligence
and maturity; finding the differences regarding the level of emotional intelligence and maturity, according to age, gender, and
specialty; suggesting some efficient strategies of formative intervention for developing the emotional competence.
The research results have a significant contribution to improving the initial teacher training programmes through the
expansion of design strategies for different procedural instruments that facilitate the development of emotional competences.
© 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selectionand/or
Selection and peer reviewunder
peer-review underresponsibility
the responsibility of Prof.
of Academic Dr.Education
World Servet Bayram
and Research Center.
Keywords: emotional intelligence, emotional competence, managing emotions, self-regulation

1. Introduction

Taking into account the increasing technology and knowledge-based occupations, academic qualifications are
of great importance today. At the same time, another factor that seems to have a great impact on academic
achievement, especially for students that intend to become teachers also, is the emotional intelligence. Recent
researches and data extracted from educational practice highlight the importance of emotional intelligence and
competence within social life, including education, profession and general wellbeing.
Emotional intelligence (EI) represents the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions. Some researchers
suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic.
Emotional intelligence is defined by Solovey and Mayer (1990) as the process of one's assessment of his own and
others' emotions accurately, to express feelings appropriately and process of emotional information including the
regulation of emotion to make the life better. Goleman (1995) has defined the emotional intelligence as recognizing
and managing feelings, self-action, the ability of understanding the others’ feelings and to conduct the relationships.
Emotional competence is what results and enhances our personal, relational and professional performance, and what

* Corresponding Author name. Constanta Dumitriu Tel.: +4-0234-580-050

E-mail address: constanta.dumitriu@ub.ro

1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.312
870 Constanta Dumitriu et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 869 – 874

ultimately helps us attain an overall increase in our quality of life. It is described as the essential social skills to
recognize, interpret, and respond constructively to emotions in yourself and others. According to Goleman,
emotional competence is a learned ability grounded in emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence influences our
potential for learning the practical emotional competencies, and developing the emotional literacy necessary for
quality of life, life satisfaction, and overall happiness. According to Bar-On and Parker (2000, 1), general emotional
competence ‘‘comprises abilities related to understanding oneself (intrapersonal) and others (interpersonal), relating
to people (interpersonal), adapting to changing environmental demands (adaptability), and managing emotions [e.g.,
being angry, losing temper, being upset] (stress management)’’. As a whole, it suggests the general effectiveness in
dealing with daily demands. Specifically, intrapersonal skills include emotional awareness, assertiveness, self-
actualization, and independence abilities. Inter-personal skills include empathy, social responsibility, and
interpersonal relationship abilities. Adaptability skills include reality testing, flexibility, and problem-solving
abilities. Finally, stress management skills include stress tolerance and impulse control abilities.
In educational applications with giving importance to emotional intelligence and emotional competence, it is
thought that there will be positive developments in academic achievement and students’ quality of life. Since it was
proven that emotional intelligence is learnable (Mayer and Solovey, 1997), we consider of importance to evaluate its
level among prospective teachers.
Systematic studies on emotional intelligence are relatively recent, starting with the 90s. There are three main
directions in defining emotional intelligence, represented by: Mayer and Solovey (1997); Reuven Bar-On (1997,
2006); Goleman (1995, 1998). The following studies have been focused on these significant directions:
• conceptual delimitation of the terms “emotional competence”, “emotional intelligence”, according to
different models – such as innate potential, abilities, or personality traits (Singh, 2006; Blair, 2002; Blair,
Denham, Kochanoff and Whipple, 2004; Saarni, 1999; Roco, 2001);
• building and validating the tools for measuring the structural components of emotional intelligence and
competence, identifying significant correlations between general and emotional intelligence, or between
emotional intelligence and success in life (Bar-On and Parker, 2000; Goleman, 2008; Mayer and Salovey,
1997; Mayer, Salovey and Caruso, 2000, 2002; Mestre, Guil, Salovey et al., 2006), between parents and
children emotional intelligence (Schutte, Malouff, Hall, Haggerty, Cooper, Golden, et al., 1998; Dumitriu
and Schifirneţ, 2011);
• designing and experimenting certain programs for learning/training abilities, capacities, emotional
competences (Singh, 2006; Matthews, Roberts and Zeidner, 2004; Zeidner, Matthews, Roberts and
MacCann, 2003; Dumitriu et al., 2011).
After Saarni (1999), the emotional competence has eight structural components: the conscience of our own
emotional estates, the ability to recognise and understand others emotions, the ability to use a proper vocabulary for
expressing emotions, empathy, the capacity to understand that inner emotional estate doesn’t necessarily correspond
to the outside one, the capacity to manage adversion or stressful emotions using self-regulation strategies, the
conscience that the nature of relations or communications depends on emotions, the capacity to accept emotional
experiences and to develop a feeling of self-efficacy.
In this study, we are interested to find the level of emotional intelligence development of first year students who
have chosen to have a teaching career next to their specialization. Our study suggests that students who are willing
to follow a teaching path have a medium level of emotional intelligence. Although there is some corroborating data
from other studies, there is not yet sufficient evidence internationally for any conclusive claims to be made. This
study also hints that emotional intelligence skills may be able to be increased in future teachers through
appropriately structured educational programmes.

2. Research design

2.1. Objectives
2.1.1. evaluating the level of students’ emotional competence;
2.1.2. finding the differences regarding the level of emotional competence, according to age, gender, and specialty;
3.1.3. suggesting some efficient strategies of formative intervention for developing the emotional competence.


 Constanta Dumitriu et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 869 – 874 871




 

Hypothesis 1. The level of emotional intelligence among students records medium and high values, regardless of
age, gender, or specialty.
Hypothesis 2. The level of emotional maturity among students records significant differences, according to gender,
age, and specialty.
The  


is represented by the level of emotional maturity of the participants, and the
independent variable is represented by age, gender, specialty.




Participants
The research group is composed of 210 students from „Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău, România.
Table 1. The research group
19-28 years 29-38 years 39-48 years
M F M F M F
Letters U 1 16 0 9 0 2
R 1 13 0 0 0 2
Engineering U 8 9 1 1 1 0
R 10 10 0 0 0 0
PPTE* U 0 5 1 7 0 6
R 2 10 0 0 0 2
Sciences U 7 17 1 1 0 1
R 7 26 0 1 0 0
Sports U 10 2 3 1 2 0
R 7 4 2 1 0 0
* PPTE – Primary and Preschool Teacher Education




Methodology
2.4.1. Methods
The method for applying the instruments was the questionnaire based survey, and for data analyzing we used
descriptive statistics (average, standard deviation, graphs and tables) and inferential statistic (independent T test),
analyzed by V.16 of SPSS software.
2.4.2. Instruments
We used two instruments: the emotional intelligence questionnaire (EIQ) and the emotional maturity questionnaire
(EMQ). EIQ is composed of two sets of questions, with „yes” and „no” answers. The score is obtained by summing
the points for each item. Depending on the score, the participants can be placed into one of the following categories:
7 points or less – low level; 8-16 points – medium level; 17-30 points – high level of emotional intelligence. As for
EMQ, it measures the degree of emotional maturity and it is structured on 25 items with „yes” and „no” answers.
The score is obtained by summing the points for each item and by dividing it to 25. A score up to 10 points signifies
infantilism, and a score over 25 points means a normal emotional maturity.

3. Results and discussions

The first statistical analysis was to determine the mean-standard deviation report, for the two instruments on the
research sample. We obtained the following values of minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics of questionnaires
Instrument Minimum Maximum Mean Standard deviation
EIQ 12 28 22.06 3.22
EMQ 11 24 19.53 2.49

The data obtained from the application of EIQ (see Table 2) confirms the first hypothesis, pointing towards more
levels of emotional intelligence development: 4,4% of participants have a low level, 57% of the participants have a
medium level of EI, and 38,6% have a high level. There were no significant differences of EI according to gender,
age, or specialty.
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The analysis of the scores for EMQ shows the following distribution: 2,4% of participants have very low scores
(lack of emotional balance); 3,8% of them have childish reactions; 16,2% of students have a tendency towards
emotional imaturity; 23,8 % of the participants prove emotional maturity; 30,4% are sensitive persons, emotionally
balanced; 23,3% have a normal emotional maturity.
In order to check the second hypothesis, regarding the possible difference according to the demographic
variables, we applied the independent T test. The second hypothesis is confirmed, because there are significant
differences for the emotional maturity level of students according to gender, age, specialty (see Table 3).

Table 3. T test comparison of the means in the emotional maturity

according to gender, age, specialty
Variables N M SD t df p
Emotional maturity 2.020 208 0.045
masculine 64 20.03 2.47
feminine 146 19.26 2.57
Emotional maturity 2.110 192 0.036
19 - 28 years 165 19.18 2.53
29 - 38 years 29 20.24 2.14
Emotional maturity 3.187 179 0.002
19 - 28 years 165 19.18 2.53
39 - 48 years 16 21.31 2.70
Emotional maturity 1.933 74 0.050
Letters 44 18.86 2.56
Sports 32 19.96 2.30

The analysis of the results at T test comparison of the means in the emotional maturity according to demographic
variables indicates: significant differences at emotional maturity level, according to gender [t (208) = 2.020, p=
0.045]; significant differences according to age - between 19-28 years and 29-38 years [t (192) = 2.110, p= 0.036]
and between 19-28 years and 39 - 48 years [t (179) = 3.187, p= 0.002]. This means that with the maturing of
biological, intellectual and social life of the individual, the level of emotional maturity increases also, expressed in
realistic perception of the self, reporting to others, realistic world, emotions, self contained control, empathy,
adaptability. As for differences recorded according to specialty, there is a significant difference between students
from Letters and Sports [t (74) = 1.933, p= 0.050], meaning that the Sports students record a higher level of
emotional maturity than Letters students.
Educational practice highlights the fact that in Romania we can’t speak of a genuine emotional competence
development among teachers and students that are preparing for a didactical career. Considering the important role
of these competences in the adaptation and performance, as well as the low level of their development, we consider
possible and absolutely necessary - the designing and implementation of training programs for students (future
teachers). These programs must be focused on progressive structuring of a set of abilities, skills, competencies
concerning:

the identification and analysis of negative emotional estates such as fear, anger, rage;

the practicing of certain techniques of awareness and control of negative emotions, of understanding and
accepting them, in order to diminish the negative effects;

training techniques for the recognition and understanding of others emotions;

the development of capacity to manage "negative" emotions, by using strategies of self-regulation, or
emotional facilitation of thinking;

the assimilation of certain strategies for progressive development of assertiveness, empathy, effective
communication techniques.
Initial training of students who have opted for teaching career implies the integration into curriculum of specific
contents and strategies focused on training and development of capacities, skills, social and emotional competence
at intrapersonal and interpersonal level (Dumitriu and Dumitriu, 2011). A normal level of emotional maturity is
materialized in the capacity of control and adjustment of the emotions, emotional balance, with a positive impact on
emotional wellbeing. It was found that the mental wellbeing of the teacher and its psychosocial competence are
 Constanta Dumitriu et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 869 – 874 873

closely linked to the level of emotional intelligence in the sense that emotional factors can occur and even block the
professional activity and the performance’s level (Holmes, E., 2005).
Dealing with emotions helps to develop better interpersonal relationships and psychological understanding of the
meaning of good mental state, leading to an increase in the power of work and efficiency of the activity.

4. Conclusions
In order to check the hypotheses, the data collected through the application of the two instruments were subjected
to statistical processing, with descriptive analysis at two levels: the general level for estimating the results and the
specific level for differentiated analysis of specific results according to gender, age, specialty. The data confirm the
two hypotheses and are in consistent with the data reported by the literature on the relationship between the innate
and built character of intelligence and emotional competence. The results showed that the level of emotional
intelligence of the students recorded average and above average (high), regardless of gender, age, specialization,
while the level of emotional maturity recorded significant differences according to gender, age, specialty.
The research results contribute to improving initial teacher training programmes through the expansion of design
strategies for different procedural instruments that facilitate the development of emotional competences.

Acknowledgements: This work is supported by CNCSIS–UEFISCSU, Ministry of Education, Research, Youth,

and Sports of Romania, project number 834/2009 PNII – IDEI, code 496/2008: Operational Model for Developing
the Competencies of the Beginning Teachers.

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