How emotionally intelligent are pre-service teachers?

Abstract

Although there is evidence that teacher emotional intelligence is important for pupil adjustment and learning and for teachers in managing the emotional demands of their work, little is known about the levels of emotional skill of teachers and beginning teachers. Using Mayer and Salovey's emotional intelligence (EI) model and the MSCEIT test of EI, this study investigates how emotionally skilled student teachers are (N = 352). Results show lower than average levels of EI among student teachers, but with important differences between students and across emotional skill areas. The implications of the findings for pre-service teacher education are explored.(postprint version

Adapting mentoring to individual differences in novice teacher learning: the mentor’s viewpoint

“…Rather, these emotionally adaptive mentors combine their focus on emotional aspects of novice teacher learning with attention for encouraging novice teacher reflective thought, and for progressively developing novice teacher competence. We suggest that in light of recent concerns about the level of emotional intelligence of novice teachers (Corcoran & Tormey, 2012) future research should pay special attention to how such emotionally adaptive mentors might help novice teachers with the development of emotional skills in teaching and learning to teach. We also suggest that such future research should attend to mentor gender, as we found that the emotionally adaptive mentors were all female, whereas the cognitively adaptive mentors were all male.…”

Virtual special issue on teachers and emotions in Teaching and teacher education (TATE) in 1985–2014

“…emotional exhaustion) (Chan, 2006), and the impact of teachers' emotional intelligence on teaching satisfaction and teachers' use of emotional labour strategies, particularly the expression of naturally felt emotions (Yin, Lee, Zhang, & Jin, 2013). Corcoran and Tormey (2012;2013) study the emotional intelligence and emotional skills of pre-service teachers. In addition, there is research into the emotional environment within the classroom: the importance of various aspects of teachers' emotional skills and competence for educational practice are evaluated (Harvey, Bimler, Evans, Kirkland, & Pechtel, 2012).…”

The Emotional Dimension in Becoming a Teacher

“…(Eren, 2014a , p. 73) The psychological research agenda on identifying emotions as well as their relation with behavior is maybe most clearly exemplifi ed in the recent work on student teachers' emotional intelligence. Corcoran and Tormey ( 2012 ) measured the emotional intelligence of 352 Irish student teachers, concluding that their scores were lower than average, but with important inter-individual differences. Similar fi ndings were obtained in a study of 210 Romanian student teachers, measuring both emotional intelligence and maturity: somewhat higher (average or slightly above), but also with large inter-individual differences (Dumitriu, Timofti, & Dumitriu, 2014 ).…”