Measuring Teachers’ Social-Emotional Competence: Development and Validation of a Situational Judgment Test

Abstract

Teachers' social-emotional competence is considered important in order to master the social and emotional challenges inherent in their profession and to build positive teacherstudent relationships. In turn, this is key to both teachers' occupational well-being and positive student development. Nonetheless, an instrument assessing the professionspecific knowledge and skills that teachers need to master the social and emotional demands in the classroom is still lacking. Therefore, we developed the Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social Situations in Teaching (TRUST), which is a theorybased situational judgment test measuring teachers' knowledge about strategies for emotion regulation and relationship management in emotionally and socially challenging situations with students. Results from three studies (N = 166 in-service teachers, N = 73 in-service teachers, N = 107 pre-service teachers) showed satisfactory internal consistency for both the emotion regulation and relationship management subtests. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the two facets of social-emotional competence. Regarding convergent validity, results from Study 3 revealed a positive association between the profession-specific TRUST and pre-service teachers' general emotional intelligence. Furthermore, small to moderate correlations with the Big Five personality traits provided evidence for the discriminant validity of TRUST. In Studies 1 and 2, we found evidence for a correlation with external criteria, that is, teachers with higher test scores reported providing more emotional support for students and having better teacher-student relationships. For teachers' occupational well-being, we found a link with symptoms of depersonalization and job satisfaction, but none for emotional exhaustion. We will discuss the use of TRUST in research, for the evaluation of interventions, in teacher education, and professional development and will illustrate ideas for enhancing the tool.

The Interplay of Emotional Intelligence Abilities and Work Engagement on Job and Life Satisfaction: Which Emotional Abilities Matter Most for Secondary-School Teachers?

“…Finally, researchers should assess specific teaching-related job characteristics and their relationship with work engagement and teachers' well-being (Taris et al, 2017;Salmela-Aro et al, 2019). In this regard, future studies should profitably use profession-specific measures through which teachers' knowledge and skills regarding EI key dimensions can be assessed (e.g., situational judgment tests such as the Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social Situations in Teaching; Aldrup et al, 2020).…”

Linking Self- and Other-Focused Emotion Regulation Abilities and Occupational Commitment among Pre-Service Teachers: Testing the Mediating Role of Study Engagement

“…Although the values were found to be in the interval proposed by the authors [43], future studies are expected to test the examined relationships including complementary measures to test emotion regulation abilities in relation to teaching-specific situations. For instance, using situational judgment tests adapted to the challenges preservice teachers may face in their professional development may beneficially contribute to evidence linking the implementation of these abilities with lower exhaustion and greater satisfaction [52]. Moreover, research is needed to test the underlying mechanisms through which self-focused emotion regulation leads to higher study vigor and increased commitment.…”

“…Although performance-based EI tests show a lower predictive effect on work-related criteria than self-report EI instruments, it is plausible that there were other relevant variables that we were unable to include in the proposed model and that would show a predictive role on occupational commitment (e.g., self-efficacy, [11]). Therefore, it would be valuable in future comprehensive works to test the joint contribution of personal resources (e.g., emotion regulation abilities, resilience, or self-efficacy beliefs) and contextual factors (e.g., professional support from colleagues or perceived autonomy support) to increased vigor and commitment [2,52,53]. Such an approach would beneficially advance knowledge in the fields of environmental research and public health as it might point out to the most relevant conditions and resources facilitating well-being among novice teachers [1,2].…”

Developing Teachers’ Social and Personality Competencies in Online Teaching: A New Challenge

“…It also is found that the social and personality competence of teachers must also be considered in teaching online. [15] State that teachers' socialemotional competence is considered important to master the social and emotional challenges inherent in their profession and to build positive teacherstudent relationships. The better the competence possessed by the teacher including social competence, the more positive impact it will have on students' competencies.…”