The Study of College Students’ Emotional Intelligence Qualities

Abstract

The era that we are living in welcomes changes and improvements in many areas replacing the traditional methods and approaches with new ones. This rapid change has redefined the expectations of society from education and educated people (Duman et al., 2014). The aim of education is not only to have individuals who have knowledge but also to have people with emotional intelligence (EQ) with an effective use of it. People who show high levels of emotional intelligence are individuals who knows themselves and their needs, their strengths and weaknesses and manages to control themselves and forms sound relationships (DoğanveDemiral, 2007). Among the 190 freshmen studying at Trakya University Keşan Vocational School, randomly chosen 128 students participated in the study and filled “Revised Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale” consisting of 41 items that can be answered in five point likert scale. The subscales “Optimism/Regulating the Mood”, “Utilizing Emotions” and “Evaluating Emotions” were examined in terms of age, socioeconomic status and the type of scores, social sciences or math/science. SPSS were used to analyse the data. “Kruskal Wallis tests” and “variance analysis” were used to identify the difference between groups. The results show that there does not seem to be any significant difference between the total emotional intelligence scores of the students and their departments, age groups and family income. However; when the sub-dimensions of the scale were examined, a meaningful difference was found between “the understanding emotions” subdimension and the department that they are studying at.