Validation of the Emotional Intelligence Scale for University Instructors in Ethiopia

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a crucial skill in contemporary workplaces and education, but there needs to be more valid and reliable measures of emotional intelligence for university instructors in Ethiopia. This study aimed to validate the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) for this population, using a sample of 654 instructors from Ethiopian public universities who completed the EIS and gave informed consent. The data was split into two and subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results indicated that EIS consisted of 12 items on two factors: emotional self-awareness and self-regulation. The EIS had favorable psychometric properties such as high factor loadings, high measure of model fit indices, and internal consistency. All EIS items had content validity ratio (CVR) of above 0.75, which is the minimum criterion for retention. Thus, the EIS had a high content validity index of 0.928, demonstrating that its items were relevant and representative of the content domain. We assessed construct validity of the measurement model, and results showed that both convergent and discriminant validity were high, as the values exceeded the recommended thresholds of 0.5 and 0.75, respectively. The EIS also indicated a high level of emotional intelligence among instructors. Implications of these findings are discussed.