Emotional Intelligence of Secondary Technical School Students and Its Impact on Their Employment in Professional Practice

Abstract

Emotional intelligence is a factor that influences one’s assertion in both personal and professional life. Experience shows that in practice, people with the best achievements at school are often not the most successful in professional practice. The issue of developing the emotional intelligence of secondary technical school students is up-to-date in the world and the need for its development in accordance with the above research achievements are confirmed by the results of KEGA project 004DTI-4/2018 “Model of Support for Development of Emotional Intelligence of Secondary Technical School Students”. The paper is focused on presenting the issue in the context of solution and the research results of the above-mentioned project. The main aim of the project is to carry out an analysis of the current situation at secondary technical schools in Slovakia in connection with the development of students’ emotional intelligence and the creation of a proposal of a model for the development of emotional intelligence of secondary school students. Further objectives of the project are: to identify stakeholders’ requirements for the teaching process at secondary technical schools, to propose a model for the support of the development of emotional intelligence of secondary technical school students, to formulate recommendations, to create educational material for secondary technical school teachers, to organize the annual international scientific conference SCHOLA on solved issues with the purpose to present the project achievements. Based on the published opinions as well as our obtained results and according to identification of the need to develop “soft” skills of secondary technical school students, we are in favour of the need to focus on supporting the development of “soft” skills of the students in secondary technical education; it means to develop the emotional intelligence of secondary technical school students in order to improve their ability to succeed in professional practice.