Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been positively associated with success in the educational and corporate world, and has recently been linked with effective teaching. However, while it has been shown to be a learnable skill, studies of EI development in teachers are relatively rare. The present study explores the impact of a two-year, group-based EI coaching programme upon EI competencies and personal and professional effectiveness in teachers, the processes and experiences induced by the programme, and the elements which contributed to its success. The study was conducted in a single secondary school in Israel, and employed an interpretive, qualitative framework and a mixed-methods approach. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with twenty of the twenty-one training-programme participants were conducted at the end of the training and comprised the main research tool. Additionally, data from pre-post training Bar-On EQ-i assessments served to prompt discussions during the interviews, validate interview findings, and further illuminate the EI development process. The findings confirm links between EI and teachers’ effectiveness and indicate that EI competencies in teachers can be developed through group-based EI coaching. Stages in the EI development process and elements that supported it have been identified. It is suggested that dedicated EI development training programmes have the potential to improve personal and professional effectiveness in teachers and may lead to organisational, school-wide EI implementation. Accordingly, development of personal EI competencies in teachers within school-based CPD programmes should be favourably considered.

Lintelligence émotionnelle (IE) ou les compétences émotionnelles (CE) désignent la capacité à identifier, comprendre, exprimer, utiliser et réguler ses émotions et celles dautrui. Les nombreuses recherches dans le domaine montrent que lIE joue un rôle essentiel dans la santé mentale et physique, dans les relations sociales mais aussi au niveau de la performance au travail. Eu égard à ces données, il serait primordial daméliorer lIE afin daugmenter le bien-être général de lindividu et ses performances. Limpact des diverses formations destinées à améliorer lIE na pas été, jusquà présent, mesuré de façon rigoureuse et scientifique. Malgré le foisonnement des interventions proposées, aucune ne simpose et aucune na été testée. Lobjectif de ce travail est de développer et de valider un dispositif de formation destiné à optimiser lIE dans une population détudiants. A cette fin, une formation a été créée, elle repose sur différents modèles théoriques et inclut les différentes CE faisant partie du concept de lIE. Ensuite, plusieurs études de validation ont été entreprises afin de tester limpact de notre formation sur lIE, sur les différentes CE et sur diverses variables liées à lIE telles la santé mentale et physique, les relations sociales, le bien-être, etc. Les résultats montrent que notre formation améliore le niveau de lIE, celui des CE, la santé mentale et physique, les relations sociales, la satisfaction dans la vie, le bonheur, certains traits de personnalité ainsi que la probabilité dun futur engagement professionnel. Une dernière étude a permis de montrer que le pattern dactivité cérébrale des individus ayant participé à la formation se modifie après lintervention. Ainsi, en plus de mesures auto-rapportées, une mesure objective a été introduite dans nos études de validation. Ces résultats sont encourageants et ils permettent de mettre en avant lefficacité de notre formation. Les recherches futures devront sattarder à mesurer limpact de notre dispositif de formation dans dautres milieux quils soient scolaire, clinique ou encore professionnel.

My thesis deals with level of socially emotional competence of home educated children. In theoretical part I present concept of individual education and disputation of various authors on this subject, characterize development period of young school age and present theoretical delimitation of both test methods that I use for data collection. Empirical part consist of elaborate comparison of output of two groups of children aged 8 - 10 years, each group consist of 5 respondents. First group is constituted of children that are home educated more than one year. Second group include children attending regular educational institution and meet the conditions I determined for pair comparison. Main methods for data collection are the Intelligence and Development Scales (IDS) and my own initiative material made of seven photographs, that are evaluated with the Scale of Social Orientation (SOS). Results are processed qualitatively. I compare individual pair of children from exploratory and control group followed by summary comparison. Then I analyze content of answers. Acquired results don't imply any significant differences in performance of exploratory and control group. KEYWORDS homeschooling, social emotional competencies, younger school age, test IDS, the Scale of Social Orientation

Children experience a multitude of benefits in response to interactions with nature. Despite documented effects, children have increasingly spent less time outdoors over the last century and experienced higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. Although child-centered play therapy (CCPT) is a culturally and developmentally responsive mental health treatment for children, researchers have limited study of environmental structure and materials employed in the therapeutic process of CCPT. In this study, I sought to further research on the integration of nature with CCPT by providing CCPT in an outdoor, contained playroom equipped with traditional CCPT toys and additional nature materials. Participants were 13 children in the southwestern U.S. with parent-reported attentional or self-regulation concerns (9 males, 6 females; ages 5-10, mean age M = 8.0). Parents reported participants' racial identities were 13% Black (n = 2), 13% Latinx (n = 2), 7% Turkish (n = 1), and 67% White (n = 10). Participants received 8 weeks of twice-weekly CCPT in an outdoor playroom. Results of two repeated measures ANOVAs revealed statistically significant improvement in attention on the Brown EF/A Scales and statistically significant improvement in social-emotional competencies on the SEARS-P. Results of this study illustrate the possible benefits of theoretically integrating CCPT and nature and the clinical impacts the novel approach could have on children's attention and social-emotional competencies. The study also provided insight into the viability of providing an outdoor CCPT intervention at a larger scale and some problems that may arise in creating and maintaining an outdoor playroom.

Thesis advisor: Raquel Muniz Castro / Researchers and educators recognize the benefits of developing students’ social and emotional competencies, but there is little research about the impact of leadership practices on the social and emotional competencies of adults in schools. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the relationship between leadership practices (i.e., what leaders think and do) that promote SEL opportunities, and how they shape the work of mental health staff (MHS) — defined in this study as, school counselors, and nurses. Findings indicated that school-based leaders promoted SEL opportunities for MHS when they (1) provided time to meet, (2) provided resources for professional development, (3) provided feedback through dialogue, (4) accessed MHS’ expertise through dialogue, and (5) provided coaching. These leadership practices shaped the work of MHS proactively. These findings suggest that principals should use social awareness to diagnose issues within the school, engage in responsible decision-making to set direction, and promote relationship-building to convince MHS to implement a plan. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Externalizing behavior problems in children reflect negative actions toward the external environment and can have detrimental consequences for their academic, social, and mental well-being. These actions range from breaking the rules to exhibiting extremely disruptive and aggressive behaviors, and they frequently come with issues with social behavior and emotional control. Socioemotional competencies, such as empathy and emotion regulation, serve as protective factors against behavior problems, enabling children to effectively manage their emotions and behaviors. This study focuses on examining the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) in reducing externalizing problems and enhancing socioemotional competencies in children aged 3 to 12. CCPT utilizes play as a natural language to establish a therapeutic relationship between play therapists and children. This relationship provides a safe and accepting environment for children to express themselves and develop self-regulation skills. By accepting responsibility for their actions, children can progress toward self-actualization and improved behavior management. To investigate the effectiveness of CCPT in reducing externalizing behavior problems and increasing socioemotional competencies in children, a systematic literature review was conducted, considering studies published over the last decade. Four databases were analyzed, and six articles met the predetermined inclusion criteria. While the data extracted from the included articles demonstrated promising results regarding the effectiveness of CCPT in reducing externalizing problems, the impact of CCPT on enhancing socioemotional competencies was not clear. It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this study, including the scarcity of research in this field and small sample sizes, which impede the generalization of the results to all populations. However, this study identified a research gap concerning the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy in addressing externalizing problems and children's social and emotional functioning. Future research is required to have a more comprehensive picture of how CCPT reduces externalizing problems and what abilities it gives children to cope with their problems; otherwise, it is not possible to consider CCPT as an evidence-based intervention for externalizing problems and widely use it for all children based on current data in the literature.

Many schools advocate for addressing the diverse needs of students through a multi-tiered model of prevention and intervention known as the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. This framework often incorporates the use of universal screening to obtain data concerning students' academic and/or social-emotional and behavioral needs. School teams are expected to design and implement tiered strategies in response to data concerning students' social-emotional needs; this can be a challenging facet of MTSS. To aid in this endeavor, this qualitative study elicited school psychologists' recommendations for (a) tiered interventions that target secondary students' social-emotional competency needs and (b) professional learning opportunities that may be helpful in responding to the data from a district-designed social-emotional competency survey. Participants included 15 school psychologists from a school district in a northwestern state in the United States. Two focus groups were conducted using a video conferencing online platform. Focus group transcripts were used to identify emergent themes that were relevant to the purpose of the research. Four primary themes were identified as being important in designing, implementing, and meeting secondary students' social-emotional competency needs: (a) instruction, practice, and reinforcement in each social-emotional skill; (b) the building of staff-student and student-student relationships; (c) staff efforts being consistent, integrated, simple, and unified; and (d) adaptation of fundamental interventions by tier and social-emotional skill. To date, it is believed that school psychologists' ideas concerning tiered social-emotional interventions in response to data are not a part of the extant literature. The findings of this study build upon the current literature concerning the importance of collaboration, prioritization, alignment, explicit instruction, and professional learning opportunities in addressing students' social-emotional needs, suggesting that school psychologists are familiar with and apply current, verifiable research to their practice. The results of this study can aid school and district teams in designing, implementing, and meeting secondary students' social-emotional competency needs.

L’objectif de cette recherche était de tester les effets de la thérapie de l’acceptation et de l’engagement (ACT) sur les étudiants en première année de la Faculté d’ Éducation, Burapha Université, Thaïlande, en développant un programme de développement des compétences émotionnelles grâce à la pleine conscience et de l’accompagnement et du conseil (MBECC) adressé aux participants. 130 d’étudiants de première année ont passé le test Thaï d’ Intelligence Émotionnelle et le test d’échelle d’évaluation de la pleine conscience (MAAS test). 18 étudiants ont été sélectionnés et répartis en 3 groupes: le Marathon MBECC, le Bref MBECC et un groupe de contrôle via une procédure d'échantillonnage aléatoire simple. Le protocole de recherche a suivi un protocole expérimental de recherche avec pré test, post- test et test de suivi, un mois après les interventions et leurs comparaisons respectives avec un groupe de contrôle. Les données ont été statistiquement analysées en utilisant une analyse multivariée des variances (procédure MANOVA). Les résultats de recherche démontrent que le programme Marathon MBECC et le programme Bref MBECC ont amélioré les scores moyens en capital émotionnel à la phase post-test et de suivi (significatif : p < .05) plus que le groupe de contrôle au post-test et de suivi. Les programmes Marathon et Bref ont amélioré les scores moyens en KE du groupe expérimental sans différence significative entre les 2 groupes, à la phase post-test et suivi. Finalement, les scores moyens et le niveau d’évaluation de la pleine conscience n'ont pas significativement affecté les scores moyens des étudiants en KE. / The purpose of this study was to study the effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on emotional capital (EK) of the freshmen students of the Faculty of Education, Burapha University, Thailand, by using the Mindfulness Based Emotional Competencies Counseling (MBECC) program. 130 freshmen students completed the Thai Emotional Intelligence Screening Test (Thai-EI) and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). Then, 18 freshmen students were divided into 3 groups: the Marathon MBECC, the Brief MBECC, and the control group by simple random sampling according to the score of Thai-EI and MAAS. The research design was a pretest–posttest control group design, including follow-up testing after 1 month. The data were statistically analyzed by utilizing a multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance. The research results demonstrated that the Marathon MBECC and the Brief MBEC enhanced the sample’s EK scores at the post-test and follow-up phase significantly (p < .05) more than the control group’s mean scores. The Marathon MBECC and the Brief MBECC increased the mean scores on EK of the experimental group with no significant differences between the 2 groups, at the post-test and follow-up phase. Finally, the scores on level of dispositional mindfulness did not significantly affect the students’ scores on EK.

In response to the main federal K-12 law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the teacher education program standards, teacher education programs have tried to address social and emotional learning (SEL) content in their curricula. Adding information on SEL alone may not be enough to overcome the shortenings of many existing early childhood programs. The current study attempted to address these shortenings through the inclusion of specialized SEL strategies and sample activities in addition to traditional content on social-emotional learning and development. This study was organized within a quasi-experimental design framework. One hundred thirty-nine preservice teachers were divided between control and treatment groups. The treatment group was exposed to the intervention (i.e. additional/special SEL strategies and activities) in the modified Nurturing Children's Social Competence class, while the control group was in the traditional version of the same class (i.e. traditional instruction with no additional/special SEL strategies and activities). All students were surveyed using the SEL Beliefs Scale for Preservice Teachers and the SEL Knowledge and Attitudes Scales for Preservice Teachers. The surveys were conducted at the beginning and at the end of the semester. An exploratory factor analysis, MANOVA, and descriptive discriminant analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that preservice teachers in the treatment group gained greater knowledge about (a) SEL in general, (b) the development of SEL skills in young children, and (c) implementation of the SEL strategies in the classroom. In addition, preservice teachers in the treatment group developed more positive attitudes toward implementation of SEL strategies and the importance of teaching social and emotional skills to young children. Even though SEL beliefs did not predict treatment / control group differences, there were statistically significant differences in the development of SEL beliefs within each group. Preservice teachers in both groups highly believed that creating a SEL environment in the classroom and schoolwide is essential.

Pour développer le capital émotionnel, le domaine de l'éducation a besoin des programmes globaux qui pourraient former des individus sains, équilibrés, compétitifs, et capables à apporter le progrès, la paix et la prospérité à la société. Il y a aujourd’hui un besoin urgent de former des individus sains, équilibrés et équipés de compétences émotionnelles, personnelles et sociales pour faire face, dans un premier temps à des problèmes émotionnels, personnels, psychologiques, et socio-économiques, et afin de répondre, dans un deuxième temps, aux exigences du contexte social tout en prenant en compte les futurs défis. Le but de cette recherche était d'étudier les effets d'un programme de formation des compétences émotionnelles sur le développement du capital émotionnel des enfants des écoles primaires au Pakistan. / The purpose of this research was to study the effects of an Emotional Competency Training Program, based on two conceptual models of Mayer & Salovey Model of EI and Goleman model of EI and one action model of Six Seconds Model of EI, on the development of emotional capital of primary school children in Pakistan. The sample of the study was the 4th class students from Amanat Memorial High School in Lahore, Pakistan. The class of 32 students was randomly divided into 16 students for experimental group and 16 for the control group. Different students from both groups could not participate in post-test or follow up and finally the 9 students for each group were included in the final data analysis of this research. The research had a pretest-posttest design with a control group and a follow up after the two month from posttest phase. The data was analyzed statistically by using the multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance technique with SPSS software. The results of the research demonstrate that the experimental group significantly increased the emotional capital scores at post-test phase as compared to the control group’s mean scores. While the experimental group, compared to control group, sustained this development up to the follow-up phase two months after the post-program phase.