Emotional Intelligence of Instructors and the Quality of Their Instructional Performance

Quality of instructional performance is the key skill needed for every teaching faculty for achieving the level of pedigree in the present educational scenario. However, the truth is that there are minimal studies to analyze the competency linking emotional intelligence to quality of instructional performance. Therefore the present attempt is to study the role of E.I. among University Instructors and analyze their quality of instructional performance. A sample of 110 Professors participated in the survey from different Universities in the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Al-Ain. Emotional Quotient Inventory scale was developed to measure the EQ of Instructors. Statistical technique like ‘t’ test and ANOVA was used to find the test mean difference between two groups and more than two groups. The result revealed that emotional intelligence and self-efficacy had very significant relationship towards their work attitude followed by their performance.


Introduction
Quality of instructional performance is the key concept that needs to be seriously analyzed considering its relevance in the current educational scenario.Surprisingly there is a dearth of studies linking emotional intelligence with quality of instructional performance of individual instructors.Hence the present attempt is to study the role of E.I. of University Instructors in predicting the quality of instructional performance.
In olden days, a person with high IQ scores was considered to be intelligent, but now the perception has changed and psychologist are giving more importance to EQ-which assesses a person's social, personal and survival dimensions of intelligence.This is often necessary for a person's daily survival rather than analyzing the cognitive abilities of a person."Emotional Intelligence" is linked with understanding oneself & others, relating to people, and adapting to and coping with the immediate surroundings, which increase once ability to be more successful in dealing with environmental demands' (Bar-on, 1988).A person with strong emotional intelligence means he/she has the ability to cope up with the daily challenges in their life and also become a successful individual in their field.In the current research, assessing E.I. of university instructors becomes utmost necessary due to the drastic changes occurring in the academic scenario.Universities and other institutions for learning need effective instructors to bring out the best in students.E.I. is considered as an important factor to distinguish between an 'average' instructor and an 'excellent' instructor.The most forward thinking educators recognize the importance of emotional intelligence in higher education, not just for students but also for the vitality of the economy as a whole'' (Cherniss & Goleman, 2003).
There is a need of empirical research in this area and the current study will add value to understand the Emotional Intelligence of Instructors and its significance and impact on students' overall performance and retention.The result of the study is especially important in the UAE due to the multi-cultural environment prevailing across the community of students and faculties in our education sector.Apart from this, the result of this study will help the higher management to decide on the trainings programs required to upgrade the faculties and help them improve and acquire these personal skills to be competitive in this demanding field.In addition to this, the results of the study will help the instructors to understand on how their emotions affect student's performance and their motivation level.
It should also be noted that very few studies have been done on E.I. of Instructors and their academic performance as instructors.Given below are the summaries of literature suggesting that E.I. of people have direct impact on their job performance.Goleman (2005) explained that if a person possesses a combination of knowledge, skills and genetic traits, they are considered competent in any work, whereas new research suggests that the core factor of competency is E.I. and all other factors have less importance.
Faculties' leaders in educational sector have a critical role in retaining, motivating and developing students & instructors.Emotionally intelligent leaders will be successful in all these parameters.A study was conducted by Drew (2006) to see whether emotional intelligence and student teacher Performance is related.This was the first study to appear in the literature regarding the importance of E.I. and performance.But the result did not reveal any statistically significant relationship between teachers E.I. and student's performance.Salami (2007) researched the relationship of emotional intelligence and self-efficacy to work attitudes of secondary school teachers in South Western Nigeria.The result revealed that emotional intelligence and self-efficacy had significant relationship with work attitude.Other factors like age, sex and educational background were also related.The study recommended that enhancing the teachers work attitude will apparently improve their emotional intelligence and self-efficacy.
From their study in 2007, Justice & Espinoza concluded that in order to successfully face the challenges of a demographically diverse class, they need to develop in the areas of assertion, comfort, empathy, decision making, drive strength, time management, commitment ethic, self-esteem, stress management and deference to have a longer teaching career.Hyeyoung and Montgomery (2010) conducted a study to Explore Korean and American Teachers' Preferred Emotional Types through which they established the importance of compassion for students, basically a form of work related compassion as an indicator of a higher EQ.Yoke and Patnaik (2015) observed a significant positive correlation between job performance and the four dimensions of emotional intelligence namely self-emotional appraisal, others' emotional appraisal, use of emotion, and regulation of emotion.Meanwhile, a study conducted by Denham, Bassett, and Zinsser (2012) to explore the impact of high EQ of teachers on the development of social skills of students have found significant association between the two factors.Faranda (2015) suggested that the level of instructor's communication with students especially outside the classroom is associated with increased student engagement and stronger/effective performance of their instructor.A study conducted by Ghanizadeh and Moafian (2010) to explore the role of teachers' emotional intelligence in their pedagogical success revealed the existence of a significant relation between teachers' success and EQ.The study also explored the effect of work experience.The study also explored the existence of any association between teaching experience, age and EQ and significant correlations were found between the three variables.Perry and Ball (2007) conducted a study to explore the difference in the reactions of teachers with high and low levels of emotional intelligence.The study found that the emotional reactions to positive/negative situations were affected by the teachers' level of emotional intelligence.It was also established that the teachers with a high EQ responded in a significantly consistent way as compared with those with low EQ levels.Brackett, Palomera, Mojsa-Kaja, Reyes, and Salovey (2010) studied the association between the ability of teachers in regulating their emotions, job satisfaction and burnout and concluded that ability of teachers in regulating their emotions is significantly associated with job satisfaction, and one component of burnout, personal accomplishment.Also, Penrose, Perry, and Ball (2007) studied the association between EI and teachers' self-efficacy and found a significant linkage between emotional intelligence and teacher self-efficacy.It was also established that work experience is positively correlated to teachers' self-efficacy.
In a nutshell, all the above findings are suggesting the importance of encouraging further research in this area especially in Middle East as very few researches have been done on emotional intelligence here.

Objectives
1) To test whether university instructors differ in their quality of instructional performance and E.I. based on each demographic variable.
2) To test whether the quality of instructional performance of University instructors is dependent on E.I.
3) To test whether there is a significant difference in the quality of instructional performance between high, average and low emotional intelligence of University teachers.

Hypothesis
There is no significant difference between EQ of instructors based on age, gender, educational level, specialization & experience.
There is a no significant relationship between E.I. and the quality of instructional performance of University instructors.
There is no significant relationship between self-awareness and instructional performance of University instructors.
There is no significant relationship between emotional management and instructional performance of University instructors.
There is no significant relationship between self-motivation and instructional performance of University instructors.
There is no significant relationship between empathy and instructional performance of University instructors.
There is no significant relationship between social skill score and instructional performance of University instructors.

Research Design
Quantitative research design was employed to analyze the relationship between E.I. and Instructors performance.'t' test and ANOVA was used to compare the association between the variables.

Sample
The data were collected from different universities across Abu Dhabi and Al-Ain.Random sampling methods were employed.A total of 110 Instructors and professors from various departments participated in this study.

Tool
Emotional Quotient Inventory scale was developed to measure the EQ of Instructors.The tool comprised of fifty items which were rated on a five point scale.The responses were rated as "Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree and Disagree".The scale assessed E.I. including their empathy, social skills, self-awareness, managing emotions and self-motivation level.The scale had both positive and negative items.Score above 200 was considered as high or above average E.I., and the score in between 150-200, meant that the E.I. is good or average, and the score below 150 indicated that the EI was below average.

Reliability & Validity
The tool was constructed by the research team comprising of Dr. Smitha Dev, Dr. Sreethi Nair & Mr. Anand Dwivedi to find out the E.I. of instructors and was also sent for expert opinion.Suggested items from the expert were retained and others were removed.Finally 50 out of 120 items were retained for the final study.The test has high content validity.Reliability was established by test re-test method.The reliability of the tool was found to be 0.73.The association between Emotional Intelligence of university Instructors and gender were explored, the obtained 't' value (0.049<0.05) indicated a statistically significant association between the variables EQ and gender.The findings suggest that the male participants have higher E.I. scores than female participants and the null hypothesis is rejected.

Results and Interpretation
The association between emotional intelligence and other variable such as age education, specialization and teaching experience were also explored, but the obtained 'p' value is greater than the alpha value and we could not observe any statistically significant association between these variables.Hence the findings shows that the faculty's age, education specialization, or teaching experiences were not associated with their E.I. and the null hypotheses is accepted.As shown in the Table 5 the emotions and empathy is not significantly associated with instructional performance and the null hypothesis is accepted.

Discussion
The current study examined the association between E.I. and the instructional performance of university instructors in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.The results demonstrated that E.I. is significantly associated with instructional performance, which is supported with the findings obtained from Goleman (2000) which suggested that people with higher level of E.I. are skillful in managing others emotions and they can easily motivate people to work towards a common goal and thereby get appreciation by others and also be recognized as an efficient instructor.Another study done by Faranda (2015) suggested that the level of instructor's communication with students especially outside the classroom is associated with increased student engagement and stronger/effective performance of their instructor.A research conducted by Ghanizadeh and Moafian (2010) to explore the role of teachers' emotional intelligence in their pedagogical success revealed the existence of a significant relation between teachers' success and EQ.The current study also explored the effect of work experience.Supporting to the current research, Penrose, Perry, and Ball (2007) studied the association between EI and teachers' self-efficacy and found a significant linkage between emotional intelligence and teacher self-efficacy.It was also established that work experience is positively correlated to teachers' self-efficacy.The study also explored the existence of any association between age and EQ and significant correlations were found between the variable.Secondly the study explored the association between E.I. and other demographic variables such as gender, education, and specialization.In the current study we could observe a significant association between gender and E.I.This result substantiate the studies of Bracelet, Mayer, Warner that females got meaningfully higher scores than male in E.I., but the lower score of E.I. among men shows their inability to understand emotions, deviated behavior and weakness in their relation with friends.Another study conducted by Mayer, Caruso andSalovey in 1999 andMayer andGeher in 1996 indicate that woman score higher on measure of E.I. than men, contradictory to the findings the present study shows that male faculties dominated in E.I. than female faculties.Study from Dr. Stein, the total EQ score measured with Baron EQ-I, increased significantly with age, peaking in late 40s or early 50s (Multi-Health System Inc).
The present study also found that the education and specialization of the instructors are not significantly associated with E.I.There are no previous researchers available to support or oppose these findings.
The composite scale breaks total EQ-I into 5 domains of self-awareness, managing emotions, self-motivation, empathy and social skills.This study examined the role of instructor's self-awareness on their instructional performance.The findings demonstrated a statistically significant association between the variables.Instructor's self-awareness helps them to tune their behavior and performance during class hours.Other sub domains like managing emotions and empathy is not significantly associated with instructional performance whereas self-motivation and social skills are significantly associated with the instructor's instructional performance.Supporting to this study, Justice & Espinoza in 2007 concluded that in order to successfully face the challenges of a demographically diverse class, the Instructors need to develop in the areas of assertion, comfort, empathy, decision making, drive strength, time management, commitment ethic, self-esteem, stress management and deference to have a longer teaching career.Self-motivated teachers actively engage in learning process and they were found to be optimistic and enthusiastic in their work.They take up all assignments with pleasure and enjoy the pride of achievement.Instructors who have high social skills such as approachable, enthusiastic could establish good relationship with their students which subsequently elevated their performance positively.

Conclusion
Delivering quality services to every aspects of life is imperative especially in educational setting, since the educators are playing a very important role in molding the future generation.Hence emotional health of instructors is very critical in educational settings.Teacher's positive emotions would lead to a positive effect on students.This study concluded that E.I. and instructional performance are significantly associated and an instructor with "excellent" and "very good" E.I. has high self-awareness and self-motivation.This in turn will positively enhance their performance in the classroom and other areas of their profession.Instructors with high E.I. can easily influence student's behavior and are able to meet students need.
The instructors working condition in UAE are very tedious due to the variety of work, and huge work load.It is indispensable that the supervisors managing them should understand the difficulties and help them to maintain a healthy emotional status for better results.Support is needed to help them to find balance between their work and personal problems.An unhealthy work environment can lead to negative emotions and less satisfaction among the faculties.
The implication of this study is considering the importance of an instructor's role in the society.The authorities have to arrange periodic training programs to enhance the E.I. of educators and thereby be more optimistic and manage their negative emotions, understand students need and motivate them in the right direction.
The major limitation of this study is the participant faculties are only from Abu Dhabi and Al Ain universities.
Only 110 faculties participated in this study.The study can be extended to other emirates as well.

Table 1 .
Socio demographic background of the sampleAs shown in the above Table1a total of 50% of the Faculties were male participants and the rest 50% were females.They were from different specializations like 26% from marketing and engineering each.29%were from education and general education.Only 4.5% had less than 1 year of experience.29.1% had 6-10 years of experience and 57.3% had more than 10 years of experience.Around 34.5% of the participated faculties were between the age group of 31-40 and 33.6% were in the age group of 41-50 and only 5.5% were less than 30, while 26.4% were above 50.It was found that 47.3% of the faculties were PhD holders, 30% Post Graduates and 22.7% had other degrees.Interestingly it was found that 25.5% of the faculties fall under 'Excellent' rating during annual appraisal and a highest of 48.2% fell under 'Very Good', while 20% were found to be in the 'Satisfactory' category and only 6.4% was rated as "Unsatisfactory".

Table 2 .
Association between emotional intelligence of University teachers and selected socio demographic variables

Table 3 .
Association between quality of instructional performance and Emotional intelligence of University teachers The result of analysis of variance of E.I. was significantly associated with instructional performance.The table shows that (0.004<5.83), is significant at 0.01leval.The results indicate that the instructors who have excellent and very good instructional performance have high E.I. comparing with the instructors who have satisfactory and unsatisfactory instructional performance.

Table 5 .
Association between quality of instructional performance and Self-awareness social skills and self-motivation