The relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' emotional intelligence and their self-efficacy in Language Institutes

The study reported in this paper was conducted to examine the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' emotional intelligence and their self-efficacy in Language Institutes. To this end, 89 EFL teachers were selected from different Language Institutes in Mashhad, a city in north-east of Iran. The participants were asked to complete the "Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale" and the "Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire". Data analysis and statistical calculations revealed that there is a significant relationship between the teachers' emotional intelligence and their self-efficacy. To investigate which components of emotional intelligence might have more predictive power in predicting teacher's self-efficacy, regression analysis was run. Three subscales of emotional intelligence - emotional self-awareness, interpersonal-relationship, and problem solving - were found to be good predictors of teacher self-efficacy. The conclusions and implications of the research were discussed with reference to the earlier findings. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.