Nature and Determinants of Emotional Intelligence among Social Studies Teachers in Public Senior High Schools in the Central Region of Ghana

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (hereafter as EI) is highlighted in literature to be crucial attribute for teacher effectiveness in coping with changes and pressure in the work environment especially in the growing emphasis on acquisition of 21st century competencies among students. Hence, in response to the mounting concerns, teachers’ level of EI has become pertinent more than ever before. However, there are controversies in literature on the influence of demographic characteristics and their impact on levels of EI amongst teachers. Therefore, this study investigated the level of EI as well as how demographic characteristics (sex, age, academic qualification and years of experience) influence EI among Social Studies teachers in public Senior High Schools in the Central Region of Ghana. Bar-On (2007) mixed model of EI guided the study. The cross-sectional descriptive survey research design within the positivists’ quantitative methodology was used to collect quantitative data with the main instrument being structured questionnaire. Data were collected from all the 380 Social Studies using the census sampling technique. With the aid of the version 28 of Statistical Product for Service Solutions (SPSS) descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics such as independent samples t-test and one-way between groups ANOVA were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that Social Studies teachers had high level of EI. Specifically, even though Social Studies teachers indicated several dimensions of EI, they had very high emotional intelligence in interpersonal relationship and intrapersonal relationship and high EI in stress management, adaptability and general mood. The study further revealed that whereas sex and academic qualification did not account for any statistical significance, age and years of teaching experience statistically significantly influenced Social Studies teachers level of EI. Therefore, the study recommended that Ghana Education Service through the Central Regional Directorates of Education should consider age and years of teaching experience when organising training programmes and interventions that have the potential of sustaining the high levels of EI to improve their effectiveness in the teaching and learning of Social Studies.