Classroom emotional intelligence and its relationship with school performance
The benefits of improving Emotional Intelligence (EI) are often discussed in terms of benefits to the individual’s social and emotional functioning. This article is unique as it speaks of the collective qualities of EI, extending the nature of interpersonal relationships between students with one another and with teachers in the classroom, to the notion of shared norms pertaining to an EI classroom environment. Here, the researchers suggest that students in a classroom can have a shared understanding and perception of their EI abilities as a group and that this shared understanding can impact on aspects such as class mood, perceived support and learning.
This research article had two aims; the first being to create and validate a group measure of classroom EI and the second, to investigate the relationship of group EI in the classroom against level of academic achievement in the classroom. It is the results of the second aim that may be of particular interest to schools as the results showed that the classrooms with higher levels of perceived EI were also the classes who were performing at a higher level academically. As researchers note, these findings do support the results of other studies which have shown a positive association between EI and academic achievement. As such, it may be important for schools to consider that in developing student EI, there is the potential for developing well rounded students, where development can be achieved in personal, interpersonal and academic domains.