Different Voices on Emotional Intelligence Skills of the Good Teacher: Teachers, Students and Parents

Abstract

In the quest of what makes a good teacher, researchers have used many different conceptions and contexts. Given the emotional and relational nature of the teaching profession, in our study we aimed to identify the emotional intelligence (EI) skills attributed to the Good Teacher. Trying to reach the core skills of the Good Teacher we asked multiple informants (i.e., teachers, students and parents) what EI skills they consider as the most important for the good teachers and looked for any variation in their perceptions. A total of 290 participants (136 teachers, 84 students, 70 parents) filled in a 20-item inventory which was based on Goleman's (2001, 2002) EI model. According to the total sample's report, the most important EI skills of the Good Teacher are trustworthiness, self-control, conscientiousness, communication and cooperation abilities, and the five least important are organizational awareness, initiative, achievement orientation, building bonds, change catalyst. Evaluations of teachers and parents were very similar, but students" significantly differed. In other words, adult participants gave higher ratings of the important EI skills of the Good Teacher compared to the young participants. Nevertheless, the ranking of the EI skills was, to a great extent, similar across the three groups.