Reliability and construct validity of factors underlying the emotional intelligence of Iranian EFL teachers

Abstract

Home Journal Archive V1N3A8

Reliability and construct validity of factors underlying the emotional intelligence of Iranian EFL teachers

Ebrahim Khodadady

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Saaber Andargani Tabriz

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

International Branch, Mashhad, Iran

ABSTRACT

The 133-item Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) designed by Bar-On (1997) and translated by Dehshiry (2003) was revised and modified by removing the response validity items, changing reverse indicators into positively worded statements and revising the remaining 117 Persian indicators on the basis of schema theory. It was administered to 669 instructors most of whom were teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in national branches of Iran Language Institute in 15 cities. The application of the Principal Axis Factoring to the data and rotating the extracted factors via Varimax with Kaiser Normalization yielded 15 latent variables (LVs) called Humanistic, Self-Satisfying, Self-Confident, Self-Aware, Self-Controlled, Research-Oriented, Content, Sociable, Empathetic, Tolerant, Flexible, Realistic, Independent, Emotional and Happy in this study. Not only did the modified Persian EQ-I proved to be more reliable than its original version, but also its thirteen LVs reached very high and acceptable levels of reliability. With the exception of the last, all the LVs also correlated significantly with each other and thus established the EI as a multifactorial construct whose constituting LVs are closely related to each other. The findings question correlating the so-called competences of EI and offer employing the factorially valid LVs as the best factors to explore the relationship between EI and variables involved in teaching and learning EFL.