Business leaders are increasingly coming to recognise that there is more to business success than
technical and cognitive competence. Personnel leadership is proving to be critical for business
bottom-line achievements considering that most business outcomes are achieved through human
capital. Emotional intelligence can be used to the advantage of organisations by developing an
emotional intelligence audit. The objective of this study was to investigate the psychometric
properties of the Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) developed by Schutte, Malouff, Hall,
Haggerty, Cooper, Golden and Dornheim (1998) for Economic Science students from a higher
education institution in the North-West Province, South Africa. The psychometric soundness of
the SEIS was tested. The general objective of the research is to standardise a psychometric
instrument of emotional intelligence and determine the validity of The Schutte Emotional
Intelligence Questionnaire (SEIS) (Schutte, et al., 1998). Specific objectives include the
conceptualisation of the importance of a standardised psychometric instrument of emotional
intelligence in South Africa; the conceptualisation of the nature and evolvement of emotional
intelligence measurements in general; determining the validity and internal consistency of the
SEIS; and establishing whether any possible group differences in terms of biographical data exist
in emotional intelligence. A valid and reliable measure of emotional intelligence could be
valuable in the organisation to identify specific EI needs that could be developed through the
implementation of EI development programmes. In this context a standardised psychometric
instrument of EI could be of use in organisations during the training and development of
employees.
A cross-sectional method with an availability sample (N = 341) from Economical Science
students from a higher education institution was used. The results supported a six-factor model
of emotional intelligence, consisting of Positive Affect, Emotion-Others, Happy Emotions,
Emotions-Own, Non-verbal Emotions and Emotional Management. The multi-analysis of
variance (MANOVA) was used to determine differences in terms of biographical data. The
results indicated significant differences between gender and language groups. African language
groups compared with Afrikaans and English language groups experienced higher levels of
positive affect. Females compared with males experienced higher levels of understanding of the
emotions of other people.
Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/940 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Vosloo, Cristel |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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