Are the Most Effective Approaches towards Helping Students with Emotional Behavioural Disorders (EBDs) Predisposed and Trait Based?

Melinda J Metaxas

doi:10.3390/psychiatryint2010007

Abstract

Trait emotional intelligence (EI) may prove to be most valuable as an approach for dealing with others’ behaviours/emotions via its related psychological processes. Personality trait theory posits that an individual’s level of EI affects their cognitive-affective-behavioural reaction towards students with emotional behavioural disorders (EBDs) and influences the level of difficult behaviour. EI would be an essential element in fostering supportive interactions with students as a way of preventing and/or managing disruptive behaviours. The author explores which individuals are more predisposed to discriminate against EBD students using an attribution model framework and identifies the most effective and supportive EI traits. Two hundred and sixty-one teachers from 51 Victorian schools completed self-report questionnaires, including the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. A quantitative survey methodology used vignettes (depicting a student with either mild or severe EBD symptoms), with 50/50 surveys randomly distributed. Teacher EI predicted the behaviour towards students with EBDs, whilst bypassing or biasing conscious thought processing. Combinations of EI traits were identified that produced the most desirable outcomes, demonstrating EI’s propensity to direct reactions towards a more effective or dysfunctional helping approach. The findings suggest that the most effective approaches towards helping EBD students are the innate dispositional reactions that establish the necessary psychological foundations for any successful interaction or outcome. The development of an assessment tool (Assessment Screen for Emotionally Intelligent Teachers (ASET)) lays a sound foundation for profiling teachers with these ideal qualities.

Highlights

Efforts continue in the research field to find effective strategies to manage and support students with emotional behaviour disorders (EBDs); variation has been found in the use and effectiveness of such approaches [1,2,3,4,5,6]
What if the best practice lies within the facilitator rather than with the strategy? The current article argues that this inconsistency is a result of individual characteristics such as trait emotional intelligence, varying reactions towards the challenging behaviour and the way professionals interrelate with students with EBDs
The current study aims to shift the focus and blame away from EBD students by considering other factors, such as teachers’ innate emotional intelligence (EI) traits, as the central influence behind stigmatisation and discrimination

Summary

Introduction

Efforts continue in the research field to find effective strategies to manage and support students with emotional behaviour disorders (EBDs); variation has been found in the use and effectiveness of such approaches [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The current article argues that this inconsistency is a result of individual characteristics such as trait emotional intelligence, varying reactions towards the challenging behaviour and the way professionals interrelate with students with EBDs. Behaviour management strategies require more than just an instructional step-by-step, assumedly emotionally detached, practical application. Behaviour management strategies require more than just an instructional step-by-step, assumedly emotionally detached, practical application It is important for any professional working with emotional behavioural disorder (EBD) children to understand how the quality of their emotional approach towards such challenging and vulnerable student presentations greatly influences the student [7,8]. It is important to identify the characteristics that could be deemed disadvantageous as well as identify some of the positive and negative effects of such emotional intelligence (EI) traits on helping

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