The relationship between emotional intelligence and
self-efficacy among Iranian EFL teachers
Mina Rastegar, Samane Memarpour
*
Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, English Department, Kerman, Iran
Received 6 October 2008; received in revised form 21 April 2009; accepted 16 June 2009
Abstract
A consideration of emotion has been traditionally neglected in the context of teaching and teacher education. This has
begun to change with the recent research on emotional intelligence (EI). It is highly likely that emotionally intelligent indi-
viduals could provide help in how to manage emotions to less emotionally intelligent individuals. Therefore, the assessment
of EI has great relevance for EFL teachers who have to deal with students coming to class with negative feelings about
learning a foreign language. This study attempted to assess EI and its relationship to self-efficacy (one important belief
that appears to have important effects on teacher and student outcomes) among Iranian EFL teachers. We hypothesized
that if teachers develop their EI, this will increase their levels of self-efficacy and vice versa. In addition, EFL teacher dif-
ferences on EI and self-efficacy beliefs were also examined with respect to gender, age, and teaching experience. The instru-
ments for data collection were Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) (Schutte et al., 1998) and Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale
(TSES) (Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). The results obtained through using Pearson Product-Moment Cor-
relation showed that there was a positive significant correlation between perceived EI and self-efficacy (r = 0.5). Using t-
test and ANOVA, the researchers found that there was no significant difference among EFL teachers with different gen-
ders, ages and teaching experiences concerning their EI and self-efficacy.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Emotional intelligence (EI); Self-efficacy; EFL teachers; Teacher education
1. Introduction
The results of research have most frequently pointed to a combination of knowledge, skill, and genetic
traits (such as overall intelligence) as the best indicator of individual competence (Jaeger, 2003). Lately, how-
ever, new research has generated evidence that these characteristics may be less important for effective perfor-
mance than the employee’s emotional intelligence (Abraham, 2000; Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995;
Ashkanasy and Daus, 2002).
0346-251X/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.system.2009.09.013
*
Corresponding author. Address: Shiraz, Modares Blv., Shahid Kalantari St., 14, No. 12, 71556-75615, Iran. Tel.: +98 0711 7277052;
fax: +98 0917 2348370.
E-mail addresses: Rastegar@mail.uk.ac.ir (M. Rastegar), samanememarpoor@gmail.com (S. Memarpour).
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
System 37 (2009) 700–707
www.elsevier.com/locate/system