The Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Early Years (SUEIT-EY) was developed to provide the first empirically tested measure of Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) four branch Ability emotional intelligence (EI) model for pre-adolescent children. The Ability EI model purports EI as a distinct set of abilities, comprising a special intelligence. The scale was revised following further analysis of its psychometric properties. This presentation presents an analysis of the psychometric properties of the SUEIT-EY and the subsequent revision of the scale, alongside assessment of the validity and reliability of the revised version. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to assess the model’s goodness of fit. A sample of 1114 students (759 males and 355 females) aged between 5 and 12 years (M= 9.54, SD= 1.54) were recruited from four primary schools. As hypothesized, participants provided valid and reliable responses to the majority of self-report (Typical EI) and objective items (Maximal EI). Participants showed some difficulty in discerning questions assessing somatic awareness, emotional blending, complex emotions and problem solving, as well as negatively worded items. As expected, the results supported the four branch structure of Ability EI but did not adequately represent the 16 underlying abilities. This finding suggests that the adult model of Ability requires revision prior to applying it to pre-adolescents, a current ongoing aim of the researchers in their continued work to model and measure the EI of participants within this developmental stage. Nevertheless, while the self-report branches showed adequate internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .65 to .74), the internal reliability of the objective branch (understanding and awareness of emotion) displayed poor internal reliability (alpha= .12). However, this may reflect the truncated scoring range of these items. Furthermore, the fit indices for each branch of the original scale, obtained using confirmatory factor analysis, indicate that the model only fit the emotional facilitation of thinking branch well (i.e., RMSEA = .05, TLI = .92, CFI = .94). The fit indices of the remaining branch scales fell below the acceptable cut-off points, which alongside the aforementioned concerns regarding the original scale founded the basis for a complete revision of the SUEIT-EY, as displayed in greater detail within this presentation. The presentation will also provide insight into the researchers’ initial modeling of Ability EI specific to individuals in this age group. The hypothesis that EI scores would increase with age and grade level and that females would score higher than males, on average, was also supported. Furthermore, the researchers will present a brief section on their investigations aimed at modeling the interrelationships between EI, bullying, victimisation, scholastic achievement, aggression and resilience. This model aids in the validation of the measure and aids in the prediction of negative (e.g., bullying and victimisation) and positive outcomes (e.g., improved academic performance). The researchers are currently undertaking further data collection and analyses to cross-validate the present findings.
Education , Measurement and Psychometrics , Social and Life impacts