A Comparison of the Ability Emotional Intelligence of Head Teachers With School Teachers in Other Positions

Abstract

Head teachers are exposed to a highly emotional and stressful job, and they need a sufficient combination of professional competencies in order to deal with daily challenges in schools. Recent studies have shown the importance of developing emotional competencies such as emotional intelligence (EI) in teachers in order to improve their professional development and to ensure the adequate functioning of the school. However, rather less is known about the ability EI of head teachers. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the ability EI of public school head teachers and compare this ability with those working in other positions within the school. For these purposes, 393 participants (35 head teachers, 39 middle leaders, 236 tutors, and 86 teachers) aged between 24 and 62 years ( M = 40.26; SD = 9.27) completed the mayer-salovey-caruso emotional intelligence test (MSCEIT). The results revealed a significantly higher total EI for head teachers than teachers, along with higher scores in the understanding branch of the MSCEIT for the head teachers compared with workers in other positions. In addition, on this EI branch, tutors also achieved higher scores than the teachers. We also evaluated the alternative hypothesis that years of teaching experience could explain the relationship between work position and the EI scores, and found no evidence in support of this possibility. Limitations and future lines of research are discussed.

On the Shoulders of Giants: Benefits of Participating in a Dialogic Professional Development Program for In-Service Teachers

“…Over the last two decades, one of the topics in educational psychology research has focused on responding to the need for more empirically validated studies to assess how effectively teachers' professional development (TPD) improves their selfefficacy, knowledge, skills, and teaching practice as well as how TPD contributes to their personal, social, and emotional growth as teachers. This literature review includes some of these contributions and others from other disciplines that have also provided knowledge about the impact that TPD has on teachers' and students' learning (Penuel et al, 2007;Pianta et al, 2008;Desimone, 2009;Hill et al, 2013;Desimone and Garet, 2015;Gutierrez-Cobo et al, 2019;Kurtovic et al, 2019). Desimone and Garet (2015) suggest five key features on which there is consensus that they make TPD effective: (a) content focus: activities that are focused on subject matter content and how students learn that content; (b) active learning: opportunities for teachers to observe, receive feedback, analyze student work, or make presentations, as opposed to passively listening to lectures; (c) coherence: content, goals, and activities that are consistent with the school curriculum and goals, teacher knowledge and beliefs, the needs of students, and school, district, and state reforms and policies; (d) sustained duration: TPD activities that are ongoing throughout the school year and include 20 h or more of contact time; and (e) collective participation: groups of teachers from the same grade, subject, or school participate in TPD activities together to build an interactive learning community (Desimone and Garet, 2015, p. 253).…”

Inteligencia emocional en docentes del programa de Administración Ambiental de una institución de educación superior

“…Una investigación realizada a estudiantes de educación infantil muestra que la mayoría de los participantes tienen niveles altos de IE; aunque existe un porcentaje que posee niveles fuera del rango óptimo (Fernández-Molina et al, 2019). Es necesario resaltar que el perfil docente, en términos generales, requiere de habilidades emocionales desarrolladas; por ello, un estudio sugiere promover altos niveles de IE para afrontar los desafíos del trabajo y generar transformaciones organizacionales en las instituciones educativas (Gutiérrez-Cobo et al, 2019).…”

“…En este punto conviene subrayar que una posible vía de intervención hace alusión a entrenar las habilidades emocionales en los docentes (Gutiérrez-Cobo et al, 2019). Por tanto, los docentes deberían participar en programas que propicien el fortalecimiento de dichas habilidades; aquellos profesionales que no comprenden ni regulan sus emociones no tienen la capacidad suficiente para generar estrategias de afrontamiento adaptativas frente a las situaciones estresantes que se presentan en el sector educativo, y no podrán responder exitosamente a las demandas laborales (Augusto-Landa et al, 2011).…”

A Theoretical Review on EFL/ESL Teachers' Professional Development: Approaches, Applications, and Impacts

“…More particularly, the results of investigations pinpointed that PD is a key element of teacher education which is helpful for different stakeholders in case its requirements are met (Borg, 2018 ; Haug and Mork, 2021 ). Moreover, scholars figured out different perceptions and beliefs concerning TPD and its impacts on various academic zones (e.g., Bett and Makewa, 2018 ; Griffin et al, 2018 ; Gutierrez-Cobo et al, 2019 ; Liu and Phelps, 2020 ; Christoforidou and Kyriakides, 2021 ).…”