The emotional intelligence scale for children

Emotional intelligence is emerging as an important area of inquiry for researchers in education and psychology. This construct is defined as a set of abilities that includes perceiving, understanding, and managing the emotions of the self and others. Emotional intelligence promotes successful adaptation across life's diverse social arenas. In addition, research supports the relationship between emotional intelligence skills and academic success.

The measurement of emotional intelligence in young children is an increasingly importap.t area of research that promises to yield educational benefits. Currently there is no existing comprehensive tool to measure emotional intelligence in children. The (purpose of this study was to create a valid instrument that reliably measures the skill levels of emotional intelligence in children.

Subtest items were adapted from Mayer, Caruso, and Salovey's adult scale, the Multifactor Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS) to help formulate an appropriate scale for children. The resulting scale, the Emotional Intelligence Scale for Children (EISC), was also based on the foundations of child-development research. The EISC consists of the following five subscales: (a) Faces, (b) Music, (c) Stories, (d) Understanding, and (e) Managing.

Two additional instruments were created to provide insight into the emotional intelligence skills of young children. An Empathy Scale was developed to assess the concurrent validity of the EISC scores, and Teacher/Parent Rating Scales were designed to provide an external measure of children's emotional intelligence skills. Also, two standardized tests (the Story Comprehension test, and the Matching Familiar Figures Test) were included to offer support for the validity of the EISC.

Analyses indicated that the internal consistency of the EISC subscales ranged from low to moderate. The internal consistency was moderate for the Empathy Scale and high for the Teacher/Parent Rating Scales. The analyses also offered support for the validity of the EISC. The results of this study led to the conclusion that several revisions should be made to the EISC subscale items and test administration procedures. It is hoped that the revised instrument will assist educational professionals in helping children to acquire the emotional intelligence skills necessary for successful social adaptation.

Note: Abstract extracted from PDF file via OCR.