Does Teacher Experience Modify the Association between Emotional Intelligence and Self-efficacy of English Teachers?

Iran, ID CLEaR2015-248;

The present study investigated the relationship between emotional inteligence and self efficacy among Iranian EFL teachers in language institutes. A number of studies have examined this association; however, the novelty of this study lies in adding the dimention of teacher experience. It was hypothesized that experience as a crucial factor influencing the efficiency and quality of almost any endeavor might also impact the nature of this relationship in language teaching. The study was conducted on 120 English teachers in seven language schools. The teachers were split into two groups of more experienced and less experienced and answered the short version of emotional intelligence questionnaire called The Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) (Schutte et al., 1998) and the long version of self-efficacy questionnaire called Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). The correlation between emotional intelligence and self-efficacy was computed for more experienced, less experienced and the total population.  The findings revealed that, akin to the previous literature, there was a significant positive relationship between these two variables among all three groups. The three subscales of emotional intelligence were also correlated positively with efficacy beliefs of teachers. The correlation was significant for both more and less experienced groups implying the insignificant role of experience in modifying this relationship.

Key terms: Emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, English teachers, experience