The effectiveness of teaching and learning module to enhance preschool children's emotional intelligence

Abstract

Socio-emotional development is among the main pillars in preschool curriculumand emotional intelligence is a main element in this aspect of development. A preliminary study conducted by the researchers found that preschool teachers in Malaysia are having problems teaching the socio-emotional components due to the lack of specific teaching tools, guidance and structure in teaching this important element. In this study, a teaching module was developed to help preschool teachers in pedagogy of emotional intelligence (EI) to enhance the preschool children's EI In Malaysia. This module was developed based on Gagne information Processing Theory, Bandura's Social Learning Theory and The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Theory by Vygotsky. The module includes ten topics which cover all elements of EI: indentifying emotion, understanding emotion, controlling emotion and using emotion. Activities were designed for each of these elements and inservice teachers were the ones who taught the children using the module. The effectiveness of this module was examined through an experimental study involving 100 preschool children who were assigned into either experimental group or control group. Preschool children's EI was measured by adapting Sullivan Emotional Intelligence Scale for Children (EISC) for Malaysian preschoolers. The reliability of the adapted scale was tested using Rarsh model and item reliability of 0.94 and person reliability of 0.93 was found. Pretest and post-test measurements were taken and paired samples t-tests were used to compare emotional intelligence scores for both experimental group and control group. Results show significant increase of emotional intelligence in the experimental group but not for the control group even when one of the components of emotional intelligence was lower for the experimental group in the pretest. These findings suggest that the module can be a useful tool for preschool teachers to help develop preschool children's emotional intelligence.