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System 37 (2009) 700–707

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The relationship between emotional intelligence andself-efficacy among Iranian EFL teachers

Mina Rastegar, Samane Memarpour *

Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, English Department, Kerman, Iran

Received 6 October 2008; received in revised form 21 April 2009; accepted 16 June 2009

Abstract

A consideration of emotion has been traditionally neglected in the context of teaching and teacher education. This hasbegun to change with the recent research on emotional intelligence (EI). It is highly likely that emotionally intelligent indi-viduals could provide help in how to manage emotions to less emotionally intelligent individuals. Therefore, the assessmentof EI has great relevance for EFL teachers who have to deal with students coming to class with negative feelings aboutlearning a foreign language. This study attempted to assess EI and its relationship to self-efficacy (one important beliefthat appears to have important effects on teacher and student outcomes) among Iranian EFL teachers. We hypothesizedthat if teachers develop their EI, this will increase their levels of self-efficacy and vice versa. In addition, EFL teacher dif-ferences on EI and self-efficacy beliefs were also examined with respect to gender, age, and teaching experience. The instru-ments for data collection were Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) (Schutte et al., 1998) and Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale(TSES) (Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). The results obtained through using Pearson Product-Moment Cor-relation showed that there was a positive significant correlation between perceived EI and self-efficacy (r = 0.5). Using t-test and ANOVA, the researchers found that there was no significant difference among EFL teachers with different gen-ders, ages and teaching experiences concerning their EI and self-efficacy.� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence (EI); Self-efficacy; EFL teachers; Teacher education

1. Introduction

The results of research have most frequently pointed to a combination of knowledge, skill, and genetictraits (such as overall intelligence) as the best indicator of individual competence (Jaeger, 2003). Lately, how-ever, new research has generated evidence that these characteristics may be less important for effective perfor-mance than the employee’s emotional intelligence (Abraham, 2000; Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995;Ashkanasy and Daus, 2002).

0346-251X/$ - see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.09.013

* Corresponding author. Address: Shiraz, Modares Blv., Shahid Kalantari St., 14, No. 12, 71556-75615, Iran. Tel.: +98 0711 7277052;fax: +98 0917 2348370.

E-mail addresses: Rastegar@mail.uk.ac.ir (M. Rastegar), samanememarpoor@gmail.com (S. Memarpour).

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This study attempts to assess EFL teachers’ perceived emotional intelligence (EI) and its relationship toself-efficacy as one important belief that appears to have important effects on teacher and student outcomes.It is conjectured that teachers who have low perceived self-efficacy might also be less emotionally intelligentand vice versa. Therefore, they need to be helped to identify their strengths and develop their EI and self-effi-cacy. In addition, in this study, EFL teacher differences on EI and self-efficacy beliefs were also examined withrespect to gender, age, and teaching experience.

2. Emotional intelligence

EI has its root in the concept of ‘‘social intelligence” that was first identified by Thorndike (1920). Thorn-dike (1920) (cited in Wong and Law, 2002, p. 245) defined social intelligence as ‘‘the ability to understand andmanage men and women, boys and girls – to act wisely in human relations”. Salovey and Mayer (1990) wereamong the earliest to propose the concept of ‘‘emotional intelligence” to represent the ability of people to dealwith their emotions. They defined it as ‘‘the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitorone’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guideone’s thinking and action” (p. 186). In another definition by Bar-On (1997), EI is defined as ‘‘an array of non-cognitive capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environ-mental demands and pressures” (p. 14). Schutte and Malouff (1999) argued that Goleman’s (1995) view of theadaptive nature of EI is nicely understood by this notion that cognitive intelligence may help individuals gainadmission to educational settings, but that EI will determine how successful they are within these settings.

As Hawkey (2006) has suggested, teacher education needs to address emotion in education in more explicitways than is currently the case. Moreover, he points out that:

Emotionality lies at the intersection of the person and society, for all persons are jointed to their societiesthrough the self-feelings and emotions they feel and experience on a daily basis. This is the reason thestudy of emotionality must occupy a central place in all the human disciplines, for to be human is tobe emotional (p. 139).

In summary, a consideration of emotion has been traditionally neglected in the context of teaching and teachereducation. Recent research on EI has begun to address this gap.

Foreign language learning is a complex task that is associated with anxiety and feelings of uneasiness, frus-tration, self-doubt and apprehension; that is, teachers have to deal with students who come to class not onlywith diverse abilities but also with a range of emotional tendencies. Since EI can be taught and developed(Goleman, 1995), EFL teachers should be helped in teacher preparation programs to be aware of the conceptof EI and develop it in themselves, so that they can help students overcome their feelings of uselessness in classand create better educational situations for their students.

Teachers who experience more positive emotions may generate more and better teaching ideas; they mayalso develop ‘‘broad-minded coping” skills (Frederickson, 2001, p. 223), which can help them solve moreproblems. Kremenitzer (2005) stated that ‘‘being able to regulate and manage emotions within the classroomis an important factor for effective and successful teaching” (p. 7). He argued that unlike other skills that ateacher has, the ability to respond to unanticipated and difficult spontaneous situations is perhaps the mostchallenging of all. When the time frame for reflection is short, teachers must be able to make a quick emotionaladjustment even in the middle of the most negative situation.

3. Self-efficacy

In the last couple of decades, the concept of self-efficacy has attracted much attention as being a significantmeasure for understanding and predicting human behaviour and its assumed consequences. Bandura (1997)who introduced the concept of self-efficacy defined it as ‘‘belief in one’s capabilities to organize and executethe courses of action required to produce given attainments” (p. 3). He presented self-efficacy as a mechanismof behavioural change and self-regulation in his social cognitive theory. During the past two decades, the con-struct of self-efficacy has received increased attention in educational research. Teachers are one group of pro-fessionals whose self-efficacy has been extensively researched. Teacher efficacy has been defined as ‘‘a teacher’s

702 M. Rastegar, S. Memarpour / System 37 (2009) 700–707

judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, evenamong those students who may be difficult or unmotivated” (Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001, p.783).

Over two decades of research, there has been compelling evidence of the powerful effects of teachers’ senseof efficacy concerning their instructional activities as well as student attitudes and achievements (Atay, 2007).Findings of various research studies have indicated that teacher efficacy affects teachers’ control orientationsand control behaviours; their use of classroom discussions and innovative teaching practices; their responsesto learners who are difficult to teach; their levels of stress and their satisfaction with the teaching profession(Bandura, 1997; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). However, little research has been conducted which exploresthe self-efficacy of EFL teachers as a specific group.

4. Literature review

EI has been the subject of much research mainly in relation to management and job performance (Carmeli,2003; Duncan, 2002; Koman and Wolff, 2008; Law et al., 2004; Wong and Law, 2002). However, there hasbeen some research carried out to investigate teachers’ EI, in particular that of EFL teachers.

Chan’s (2004) study assessed the relationship between perceived EI and self-efficacy among 158 secondaryschool teachers. Results indicated that teachers scored most highly on different components of EI; moreover,findings showed that there was a positive relationship between EI and self-efficacy and that this study providedno support for gender differences.

Iordanoglou (2007), who believed that a teacher is a leader in class, examined the relationship between EI,leadership, job commitment and satisfaction among 332 primary education teachers in Greece. Resultsshowed that EI has a positive effect on leadership effectiveness and is also strongly related to teachers’ com-mitment and satisfaction, as determined by self-report measures. The findings suggested that besides cognitiveabilities, the selection criteria in education should also include emotional competencies to ensure adequate per-formance of educators.

5. Methodology

5.1. Participants

The participants of this study were 72 English teachers (36 males, 36 females) teaching at Shiraz highschools. These teachers were between the ages of 30 and 50, and had been in the teaching profession for 5–25 years. Shiraz (a city in Iran) has four areas of education. All high schools in each area are listed and dividedinto female and male high schools. Nine female high schools and nine male high schools were chosen ran-domly from each area.

5.2. Instruments

The following instruments were used in this study:

a. Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998).b. Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001).

The Farsi versions of these instruments were given to the participants of this study. The original question-naires went through the process of translation–retranslation by M.A. students studying TEFL at KermanBahonar University.

5.2.1. Emotional Intelligence and Teacher Efficacy Scales

The Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS), developed by Schutte and her colleagues based on Salovey andMayer’s (1990) model of EI was used in this study. This scale assesses EI based on self-report responses to33 items tapping the evaluation and expression of emotion in oneself and others, the regulation of emotion

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in oneself and others, and the use of emotions in solving problems. Participants responded to the items byindicating their degree of agreement with each of the 33 statements using a five-point likert-type scale rangingfrom 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The original EIS had demonstrated high internal consistency(Cronbach’s a ranging from 0.87 to 0.90), and good 2-week test–retest reliability (r = 0.78) (Schutte et al.,1998). In this study, the EFL teachers’ demographic characteristics (years of experience in teaching English,age and gender) were also gathered with the Farsi version of this instrument.

In this study, the short version of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran and WoolfolkHoy, 2001) was also used. The short version of this scale consists of 12 items. Participants responded tothe items by indicating their degree of agreement with each of the 12 statements using a five-point likert-typescale ranging from 1 (nothing) to 5 (a great deal). The reliability for the original 12-item scale is 0.90 (Tschan-nen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001).

Before conducting the main study, the reliabilities of the Farsi versions of these questionnaires wereobtained through a pilot study; that is, 20 randomly chosen English teachers responded to the questionnaires.This pilot study showed good reliabilities (a = 0.75) and (a = 0.84) for the Emotional Intelligence Scale andthe Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale, respectively.

5.3. Data collection

The Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) and Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) were distributed amongthe participants simultaneously. Participants were given time (15–20 min) to answer these questionnaires andthere were accompanying instructions. They were assured that the information would be kept completely con-fidential but they were not told how it would be used.

6. Results

The descriptive statistics of the EFL teachers according to age range and years of teaching experiences areshown in Tables 1 and 2.

6.1. The relationship between EI and self-efficacy

In order to test the relationship between EI and self-efficacy, a Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coef-ficient was run using SPSS. The results (Table 3) indicate that there is a positive significant correlation(r = 0.5) between EI and self-efficacy at the level of 0.01.

6.2. Differences in EI and self-efficacy according to gender, age, and teaching experience

To explore whether there were significant gender differences in EFL teachers’ EI and self-efficacy, an inde-pendent t-test analysis was conducted. The results (Appendix 1) revealed that there was no significant differ-ence between male and female EFL teachers concerning their EI and self-efficacy.

In order to determine whether there were any significant differences among EFL teachers with different agesand teaching experiences concerning their EI and self-efficacy, analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) wasrun. The results (Appendix 2) showed that there was no significant difference among EFL teachers with dif-

Table 1Descriptive information about ages of the participants.

Age range Frequency Percentage

30–35 13 18.136–40 32 44.441–45 16 22.246 and up 11 15.3

Total 72 100

Table 2Descriptive information about teaching experiences of the participant.

Years of teaching experience Frequency Percentage

5–15 34 47.216–20 18 2521 and up 20 27.8

Total 72 100

Table 3Pearson correlation between emotional intelligence and self-efficacy.

Emotional intelligence Self-efficacy

Emotional intelligence

Pearson correlation 1 0.503**

Sig. (2-tailed) – 0.000N 72 72

Self-efficacy

Pearson correlation 0.503** 1Sig. (2-tailed) 0.000 –N 72 72

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

704 M. Rastegar, S. Memarpour / System 37 (2009) 700–707

ferent age range and experiences in teaching concerning their EI and self-efficacy. In other words, age andteaching experience had no effect on EFL teachers’ EI and self-efficacy.

7. Discussion

With regard to the relationship between EI and self-efficacy, the study revealed that there was a positivesignificant relationship between EI and self-efficacy (Table 3). These findings are in line with those reportedby Chan (2004) and Martin et al. (2004). Over recent decades, there has been research which demonstratespositive educational outcomes of teachers’ sense of efficacy such as persistence, enthusiasm, commitment,as well as students’ achievement and motivation (e.g., Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). Thus,it is interesting and beneficial to teacher educators and EFL teachers that EI and self-efficacy are positivelycorrelated, since each of them has the capacity to be developed, and each has a positive influence on the other.In other words, development of EI during teacher education programmes can lead to the development ofteachers’ self-efficacy and vice versa.

In this study, a breakdown of the results for EI by gender, age, and teaching experience revealed no signif-icant differences. These findings were in line with those reported by Chan (2004) and Hopkins and Bilimoria(2008), while in conflict with the findings of Harrod and Scheer (2005) which indicated that there were signif-icant differences between females and males, with females reporting higher EI levels. However, the reason forthis conflict may be related to such factors as culture and the kind of environment.

Regarding the influence of gender, age, and teaching experiences on self-efficacy levels, it was found thatthere was no significant difference between the self-efficacy levels of male and female EFL teachers. These find-ings confirmed the results reported by Gencer and Cakiroglu (2007) and Chan (2004), but conflicted with thefindings of Kalaian and Freeman (1994) (cited in Gencer and Cakiroglu, 2007) and Chester and Beaudin(1996) who found that beliefs are mediated by the teachers’ age and prior experience; that is, age and priorexperience were associated with changes in newly hired teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. According to their study,older novices were more self-assured and certain of their commitment to teaching than were younger novices.They believed that teaching allows them to contribute to the success of the community and to the future of theworld at large by positively affecting learners.

This study had some limitations, including the small sample size and the impossibility of generalizing find-ings which were based on a specific sample of Iranian EFL teachers so that they would be applicable to the

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wider population of EFL teachers. Another major limitation of the present study was the complete reliance onself-report data in the assessment of EI and self-efficacy which are susceptible to self-presentation biases andmay not be entirely accurate. Alternatively, one might argue that the assessment of self-efficacy beliefs by self-report should be considered appropriate, as no observer could have the same accurate expert knowledge aboutthe individual as the individual himself or herself.

Further studies should include qualitative tools such as interviews, think-aloud protocols, and diaries whichmight help provide further insight into the EI and self-efficacy of specific groups of teachers.

8. Conclusion

The findings indicate that EFL teachers, particularly experienced ones, would do well to take a closer lookat their own emotional skills and to systematically reassess these skills through an emotionally intelligent lens.As Kremenitzer (2005) stated: ‘‘an increase in a teacher’s emotional intelligence significantly impacts on stu-dent learning in a powerful way both in academic and interpersonal domains” (p. 6). This underlines theimportance of reminding oneself of the existence of these emotional abilities and trying to increase one’s sen-sitivity towards them both in the classroom and outside. This should be a more explicit part of effective EFLteacher education programmes.

Findings from this study might also help researchers and teacher educators focus more on enhancing EFLteachers’ sense of efficacy, and work towards changing the way teachers are prepared and supported in theirearly years of teaching.

Moreover, findings of this study showed that there was no significant difference in the levels of EI and self-efficacy among EFL teachers with respect to gender, age, and teaching experience. Therefore, it is suggestedthat both male and female EFL teachers with different age range and experiences can be successful in teaching.

It is highly likely that emotionally intelligent individuals could provide help in how to manage emotions toless emotionally intelligent individuals. Therefore, the assessment of EI has great relevance for EFL teacherswho have to deal with students coming to class with negative feelings about learning a foreign language; more-over, the strengthening of healthy beliefs about teaching in teachers can have important effects on educationalsystems. The first finding of this study was that there was a positive relationship between EI and self-efficacy.This finding gives us the first and foremost implications that enhancement and development of each of theseconstructs can lead to the enhancement and development of the other. Therefore, there is a need to considerthem as important factors during EFL teacher education programmes both in pre-service and in-service tea-cher preparation.

Appendix 1

See Tables 4 and 5.

Table 4t-Test analysis—EI and gender.

Groups N M SD t df P

Male 36 3.9 0.25 0.87 70 NSa

Female 36 4 0.29

a Non-significant.

Table 5t-Test analysis—self-efficacy and gender.

Groups N M SD t df P

Male 36 4.02 0.4 0.13 70 NSa

Female 36 4.03 0.3

a Non-significant.

Table 6ANOVA analysis—EI and age.

Age range N M SD F df P

30–35 13 3.9 0.26 0.8 B = 3W = 68T = 71

NSa

36–40 32 4 0.3241–45 16 3.9 0.246 and up 11 3.9 0.2

a Non-significant.

Table 7ANOVA analysis—EI and years of teaching experience.

Years of teaching experience N M SD F df P

5–15 34 3.9 0.26 0.1 B = 2W = 69T = 71

NSa

16–20 18 3.9 0.3221 and up 20 4 0.24

a Non-significant.

Table 8ANOVA analysis—self-efficacy and age.

Age range N M SD F df P

30–35 13 4 0.4 0.2 B = 3W = 68T = 71

NSa

36–40 32 4 0.341–45 16 4 0.446 and up 11 4 0.3

a Non-significant.

Table 9ANOVA analysis—self-efficacy and years of teaching experience.

Years of teaching experience N M SD F df P

5–15 34 4 0.3 0.02 B = 2W = 69T = 71

NSa

16–20 18 4 0.421 and up 20 4 0.3

a Non-significant.

706 M. Rastegar, S. Memarpour / System 37 (2009) 700–707

Appendix 2

See Tables 6–9.

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