Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence with Teaching Ability in the Faculty Members of Medical sciences

1. Introduction

Promoting the capabilities of faculty members, who are in charge of training the health human force, will improve the education of medical science students and promote the health system [1]. Teaching capabilities refer to the conscious and constant use of communication skills, knowledge, reasoning, emotions, and values in the educational setting that requires technical skills and understanding, whereby the instructor can aid the students’ intellectual, social, and spiritual growth [2]. Teaching includes the perception of the emotion management quality to facilitate and improve inter-personal relationships and conflict management [3]. Teaching requires capabilities besides scientific mastery and a knowledge of psychology. Establishing effective communication will direct the learners towards useful interaction [4].

Emotional intelligence is a popular topic in education and psychology. Scholars believe that emotional intelligence is responsible for success in many domains [5]; competencies related to emotional intelligence can promote one’s leadership and group participation ability, stress management, and communication, and greatly contribute to academic achievement and role adjustment [6]. It is correlated with other skills and characteristics such as happiness, motivation, and establishing social relationships [7]. According to Bar-On (1980), emotional intelligence is a wide spectrum of non-cognitive capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence people’s ability to cope with environmental pressures [8]. Daniel Goleman 1 (1995) believes that emotional intelligence is the main factor contributing to a wide spectrum of emotional competencies that lead to one’s excellent professional performance [7]. In his theory, Goleman considers five key components of self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, social awareness, and relationship management for emotional intelligence [6]. Later, in his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner (2014) notes personal intelligences, including intra- and inter-personal components. Intra-personal intelligence refers to an integrated intrinsic capability for creating an accurate model of oneself, e.g., self-knowledge and self-confidence. Inter-personal intelligence refers to the ability to understand others in terms of different moods, tastes, motivations, and goals; interest in others; and empathy [9]. Emotional intelligence is dynamic and can be promoted through purposive education and training. It distinguishes individuals and groups who have prominent and excellent performance [10]. In addition to strengthening positive characteristics in themselves and their students, instructors with a high emotional intelligence teach with a high degree of motivation and interest, and have superior social and cooperative skills. Promotion of emotional intelligence skills in teaching needs the evaluation of these skills in instructors and finding the areas that require improvement [5]. Attitudes and skills are trainable [11]. Research shows that those with poor emotional intelligence and occupational performance can reach those who have superior capabilities only through improving their emotional intelligence [12]. Emotional intelligence is positively correlated with the achievements of the components of students’ progress objectives [13]. According to education experts, teaching is a job that demands higher emotional intelligence. In fact, the effectiveness of teaching requires coordination between the teacher's and learners’ activities in a cooperative, intimate, and motivating classroom environment [14]. Today, several features such as simulation, designing virtual learning environments, attractiveness, and lack of time and place barriers have been very popular in education. To teach in such environments, professors should have specific technical and managerial competencies to respond to the learners’ needs in practical situations [15]. The tendency towards educational management promotion has greatly accelerated in the 21st century [16]. The critical duties of the education decision-making system at universities to promote educational performance include designing new educational strategies and taking measures to improve the quality of teaching; to this end, teaching quality indicators at the current and expected levels should be identified, and the gap between these two levels should be determined [17]. Based on the previous studies, assessment of professors’ emotional intelligence as well as teaching skills and competencies can provide suitable information for analysis of educational problems and strategic planning. It can also help professors at medical schools to identify their weaker capabilities and look for ways to improve these skills. Thus, the present study mainly aimed to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and teaching competencies among faculty members at the school of medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS). The general hypothesis was:

There is a relationship between emotional intelligence in teaching and the teaching competency of faculty members at the IUMS school of medicine.

2. Materials and Methods

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in the school of medicine (IUMS) by sampling among the basic sciences faculty members. A census sampling with a sample size of 98 was performed. The research instruments were distributed to all the 11 educational departments of basic sciences at said school during in-person visits. A from explaining the objectives of the study and instructions for filling out the questionnaires was also provided to the participants. Moreover, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the instruments were emailed to 54 faculty members. The Emotional Intelligence in Teaching questionnaire was employed to assess emotional intelligence. This 31-item questionnaire was developed and its psychometrics were assessed by Haqhani et al. (2014) who provided consent to its use in this study. The Cronbach's alpha indicating the reliability of this questionnaire is 0.9 [5]. The items are based on Goleman's five domains of emotional intelligence, i.e., self-awareness, emotion regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The questionnaire includes a demographic information section and 31 statements about emotional intelligence in teaching. Each statement is scored on a five-point scale from 0 to 4, and the maximum score of the questionnaire is 124.

Teaching ability was assessed by using a self-report teaching ability measure, adapted from the statements of the University of Alabama Teaching Ability Self-Assessment Questionnaire. This questionnaire includes a demographic information section and 29 statements about teaching ability. It was developed and its psychometrics were analyzed by Akbari et al. (2012). The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86 [2]. In this questionnaire, teaching abilities are classified into eight domains, and the score of each domain is calculated separately: Preparedness (planning) before teaching (3 items), teaching based on an organized syllabus (6 items), student performance assessment before, during, and after teaching (4 items), class management (2 items), conductive learning atmosphere (4 items), communication (2 items), leadership and professional development (3 items), and the performance of professional responsibilities (5 items).

In total, 58 filled-out questionnaires were collected. The data were analyzed in SPSS by using inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the central tendency and dispersion indicators, and to plot the diagrams. Then, the normality of data distribution was assessed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test. Spearman correlation test was performed to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and teaching ability. A two-way analysis of variance was used to control the effect of a confounding variable. The significance level was set at < 0.05 in all the tests.

3. Results

The mean percentage of the total scores of the Emotional Intelligence in Teaching questionnaire was 89.93 ± 7.5%. The mean percentage of the total scores of the Emotional intelligence in Teaching questionnaire was 89.93 ± 7.5%, which is moderate. Table 1 presents the demographic characteristics variables.

For the Emotional Intelligence in Teaching questionnaire, the minimum score was 87, the maximum score was 124, and the mean score was 111.51 ± 9.3 (Table 2).

Using t-test and ANOVA analysis of variance, it was found that there is no statistically significant difference between the mean scores obtained from the Teaching Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire with some demographic and occupational characteristics (P> 0.05) (Table 3).

The mean percentage of the scores of the teaching ability questionnaire was 87.84 ± 7.4%. communication, performance of professional responsibilities, conducive learning atmosphere, planning before teaching, professional development and leadership, and assessing students’ performance, in descending order of score (Table 4).

No significant difference was observed between the mean scores of the teaching ability questionnaire and some demographic and occupational characteristics (all p > 0.05).

Based on Spearman’s rho, a positive correlation was found between the scores of each domain of the teaching ability questionnaire and the scores of the emotional intelligence in teaching questionnaire (all p < 0.05; Table 5).

The results of Pearson test showed a positive relationship between emotional intelligence in teaching and faculty members' teaching ability. This relationship can be seen in Figure 1. (rs = 0/31, p <0/001)

Based on Spearman's rho, the correlation between the scores of each domain of the teaching ability questionnaire and the scores of the emotional intelligence in teaching questionnaire was examined in terms of some demographic and occupational characteristics (at p < 0.05; Table 6).

No positive correlation was observed between the scores of the teaching ability and the emotional intelligence in teaching questionnaires with being single, being a full professor, and graduating from a foreign country, but a positive correlation was found with other demographic and occupational characteristics.

4. Discussion

The findings of this study indicated that the basic sciences faculty members at IUMS have a moderate emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence has an undeniable effect on health, personality development, strengthening intra- and interpersonal relationships, learning, teaching, occupational achievement, and organizational management [12]. It promotes organizational performance, teaching skills, and adjustment [18]. Bar-On showed that emotional intelligence can be developed and improved through training, and that training the skills related to interaction development should be included in in-service training programs [19]. Emotional intelligence can be taught by training attentive listening, respecting one’s and others’ feelings, and empathy in intra- and interpersonal relationships. One way to train emotional intelligence is through an intervention based on the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). In the educational sessions, the topics related to emotional intelligence promotion are presented in theory, through role-playing, and free discussions [20]. Maleki Avarsin (2008) showed that many skills constituting emotional intelligence can be promoted through psychotherapy, counseling, preparation, and instruction of life skills [21]. Training clinical teaching indicators based on emotional intelligence can positively change the professors’ attitudes and cognition, but long-term interventions are required to modify their skills [22]. Soleiman Gheisar (2018) suggests that, to have students with high emotional intelligence, curriculum developers should include emotional intelligence promotion in the curricula. Programs and seminars on emotional intelligence should be offered to professors at all levels to provide them with the information necessary to enhance their students’ emotional intelligence [6].

Eight domains of teaching ability were evaluated in the present study. Effective teaching is a set of skills in the instructor that help the students achieve the educational objectives, ensure learning, and help attain the general goals of the university [23]. The process of empowerment leads to intrinsic motivation in the instructors, thereby promoting creativity to look for ways to correct the mistakes and reconstruct the work processes [24]. Results of a study by Alimohammadi et al. (2019) in Golestan Province (Iran) revealed that teachers’ professional skills development is a component of teacher empowerment; based on the existing challenges and the society’s diverse needs, this study recommends updating the resources, improving the human force, and the teachers’ professional empowerment [25].

Learning “change” is a new objective of education. Acquisition of knowledge, development of intelligence, achievement of self-knowledge, promotion of mental faculties, overcoming undesirable motivations are among the goals of modern education [26].

In the present study, a significant positive correlation was found between emotional intelligence in teaching and the teaching abilities of the basic sciences faculty members at the IUMS school of medicine. No significant difference was found between the mean emotional intelligence of these faculty members and their demographic information.

These results are consistent with the findings of the study by Eslamian et al. at Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences [27] and by Haqhani et al. at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences [5]. The present study also examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and the components of effective teaching. The findings revealed a significant correlation between the emotional intelligence of the professors at the school of medicine and their use of all domains of effective teaching. This result is in line with the findings of Narehan Hassan at the University Tecknology MARA, Malaysia [28].

Note that scoring can be affected by the participants’ personality on a self-assessment measure, especially measures of emotional intelligence; those with a higher level of assertiveness score themselves higher on self-evaluations [27]. Therefore, future studies can repeat this evaluation by using other tests. To improve the teaching ability and emotional intelligence of the professors at universities of medical sciences, it is recommended that in-service training, emotional intelligence skills workshops, and teaching ability promotion workshops be held.

5. Conclusions

The results of this study indicated that emotional intelligence can predict the professors' teaching abilities. Having a high emotional intelligence can determine professors’ teaching abilities, which will eventually improve the students’ optimal learning, further realize the educational objectives, and promote organizational performance. Thus, higher education planners should pay attention to this factor.