Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Teacher’s Effectiveness: A Study of Higher Secondary School Students Perceptions

Abstract

This paper has investigated the role of EI in making teaching effective. Although studies indicate that EI teachers create more favourable classroom environments, very few studies have been conducted on how the students of higher secondary schools perceive effective teaching in relation to the teacher’s emotional intelligence. The main objective was to identify which EI elements students value most in teachers and how these components relate to perceptions of teaching effectiveness. Six urban government higher secondary schools from the district of Kohat were selected. Of these schools, 285 students completed a 30-item questionnaire. Ten items on effective teachers and twenty on emotional intelligence were included. A 5-point Likert scale was used to analyse the collected data and assess reliability. T-test and ANOVA were also used. The analysis showed that students rated EI and effective teaching positively, with average scores ranging from 2.21 to 2.32. According to students, the most important element of EI is motivation, with 24.9% and, followed by social skills with 21.8%. The items of the questionnaire were highly consistent with a value from o.720 to o.896 of Cronbach’s alpha. The results verify that the EI is well identified by students in their teachers and they correlated it with effective teaching. It is also recommended that EI development be included in future teachers' training programs, and such research may be conducted with students in rural areas and private schools.