Investigation of Preschool Teacher Candidates’ Emotional Intelligence According to Various Variables

The aim of this study is to reveal the relationship between emotional intelligence and teaching type of program they studied and grade level of preschool teacher candidates who studied in the program of Preschool Teacher Training of Education Faculty. Survey method was used in this research. Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale was used for the data collection tool. The working group consists a total of 578 teacher candidates (279 from normal education, 299 from secondary education) who were studying in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th class of different learning type of a university in the Western Black Sea region in the fall semester 2015-2016 academic year. According to findings obtained from this study, there wasn’t a meaningful relation between the averages of emotional intelligence total score and the averages of sub-dimensions of emotional intelligence total score of teacher candidates and teaching type of program they studied. As a result of analyzes performed to determine whether differences according to the averages of sub-dimensions of emotional intelligence total score (of optimism, utilisation of emotions, appraisal and expression of emotions) and the averages of emotional intelligence total scores in terms of grade level, that there was a meaningful relation between the averages of sub-dimensions of emotional intelligence total score (of optimism, utilisation of emotions) and the averages of emotional intelligence total score and grade level. Significant differences between the third and fourth to the third-grade classes were in favor (p 0.05). For studying in secondary education teacher candidates, there wasn’t a meaningful relation between the averages of emotional intelligence total score and the averages of sub-dimensions of emotional intelligence total score of teacher candidates and grade level. Besides as a result of the twoway ANOVA analysis, it was determined that teaching type of program they studied*grade level interaction wasn’t make a significant difference on emotional intelligence scores. As a result of the study, it is suggested that different researches can be done considering teacher candidates studying in different programs on larger samples, besides different classroom environments can be designed which teacher candidates’ emotional intelligence skills developer