Developing students’ emotional intelligence (EI) to help prevent ESL

Teaching and learning in schools have strong social, emotional and academic components (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004). Students usually learn in collaboration with their teachers, in the company of their schoolmates, and with the encouragement and support of their family environment. Emotions can facilitate or block a student’s academic engagement, their attitude to school work, commitment, and ultimate academic success (Qualter, Gardner, Pope, Hutchinson, & Whiteley, 2012). Relationships and emotional processes strongly affect how and what we learn. Schools should therefore effectively address these aspects of the educational process for the benefit of all students (Elias, 1997). Emotional skills support both the cognitive and social development of young children (Denham, 2007). Emotional knowledge predicts academic competence and task orientation in middle childhood, even when controlling for verbal ability (Izard, 2002; Izard et al., 2001). Further, poor emotional competence amongst adolescents results in school difficulties associated with academic underachievement, such as school drop-out and persistent antisocial behaviour (Gagnon et al., 1995; Haapasalo & Tremblay, 1994; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). Studies reveal that students with higher emotional intelligence (EI) show higher social competencies, have better grades at school and display higher school engagement (e.g. Marquez, Martin, & Brackett, 2006). In different studies these factors negatively correlate with early school leaving (ESL) and seem to work as preventive factors for ESL (Qualter, Gardner, Pope, Hutchinson, & Whiteley, 2012).

In this article, we present different findings in support of the importance of the relationship between students’ EI and their academic results, which likely prevents ESL. Moreover, we describe a method for helping a child/student develop their EI which can be used by teachers, parents and other school professionals working with children in everyday communication.

The article is based on a review of the literature by searching in the PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, ERIC, Proquest, Science Direct and Google scholar search databases. Keywords used in the literature search were child’s emotional intelligence, emotional development, students’ unpleasant emotions, emotional support in schools, student-teacher relationship, child’s emotional competencies, early school leaving, school drop-out etc. For the purposes of the article, we mainly considered scientific papers and online scientific books.

Recently, different models of EI have been developed. Some focus on detecting and grouping socio-emotional traits, others focus on emotional abilities, while the third group of models conceptualises emotions as multi-componential processes and concentrate on presenting and explaining these processes.

Some researchers define EI as an emotion-related cognitive ability involving the ability to perceive, use, understand and regulate emotion (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2004). These EI models are addressed as ability EI models. Others define EI as a constellation of emotion-related self-perceptions at the lower levels of personality hierarchies (Petrides, Furnham, & Mavroveli, 2007; Petrides, Pita, & Kokkinaki, 2007). These EI models are named trait EI models. For example, the theoretical model of emotional competencies developed by Bisquerra and Perez (2007) can be considered a trait EI model because it incorporates both cognitive and personality dimensions. It groups emotional competencies into five big dimensions: emotional awareness, emotional regulation, personal autonomy, social competence, and life competencies and well-being. Emotional awareness includes the capacity to be aware of one’s own emotions, and the ability to detect the emotional climate in a specific context. Emotional regulation describes the capacity to use and express emotions appropriately. It requires being aware of the relationship between emotion, cognition and behaviour, and to have efficient coping strategies and capacity to self-generate positive emotions. Personal autonomy refers to a group of characteristics such as self-esteem, positive life attitude, responsibility, capacity to critically analyse social rules, capacity to look for help and resources when needed, and self-efficacy beliefs. Social competence addresses the capacity to establish positive relationships with other people. Life competencies and well-being refers to the capacity to display responsible and appropriate behaviors to solve personal, family, professional and social problems to achieve better individual and society well-being.

In comparison to trait models, the ability EI models explain EI as the capacity to process emotional information in order to enhance cognitive activities and facilitate social functioning. The ability model by Mayer and Salovey (1997) identifies four abilities linking cognitive processes with emotions and emotions with thinking. These four abilities are perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions.

On the other hand, the model of Circular Emotional Reaction (CER model) (Milivojević, 2008) focuses on multi-componential processes that occur in the organism while experiencing emotions. It explains the sequence of processes that lead from the perception of the stimulus to the individual’s reaction to it. This model’s advantage is that it is easily comprehensible and can be directly used in programmes for developing the EI of teenagers and adults.

Different studies have focused directly on the relationship between EI and academic performance. For example, correlations between EI and school grades ranged from r= .20 to .25 for college students (Barchard, 2003; Brackett & Mayer, 2003; Lam & Kirby, 2002; Parker, Creque, Barnhart, Harris Irons, Majeski, Wood, Bond, & Hogan, 2004) and r= .28 to .32 for high school students (Parker, Summerfeldt, Hogan, & Majeski, 2004). However, in some studies, once general intelligence and personality were controlled, the correlation between EI and school grades did not remain statistically significant (Barchard, 2003; Brackett & Mayer, 2003; Lam & Kirby, 2002). In their research, Marquez, Martin and Brackett (2006) concluded that in a sample of high school students EI was related to six out of nine variables of social competence and final school grades. The most robust connections were between EI and self-confidence, prosocial behaviour, and academic grades. All of these associations remained significant when general intelligence and personality were controlled.

Some authors (e.g. Berrocal & Aranda, 2008) stress that nowadays it is necessary to educate the emotional intelligence of children. This idea of emotional education is also theoretically supported and undergoing constant revision and updates (e.g. Goleman, 1995; Mayer, Caruso, Perkins, & Salovey, 2001; Gardner, 1993; Cherniss, 2000; Hedlund & Sternberg, 2000, among many others). Experts in this field agree certain emotional competencies can be learnt, and that there is a need to integrate them within the early and continuous learning of students in schools (e.g. Caruso, Mayer, & Salovey, 2002; Petrides, Frederickson, & Furnham, 2004; Saarni, 2000).

By promoting social and emotional learning programmes in schools, educators try to minimise emotional and behavioural problems that interfere with the learning process and the development of positive peer relationships (Aber, Brown, & Henrich, 1999). Research shows that, without intervention, students who experience difficulties in regulating their emotional experiences early in their schooling continue to experience academic, emotional and behavioural difficulties later on in life (Huffman, Mehlinger, & Kerivan, 2000). Moreover, researchers have found that early emotional and behavioural problems lead to school failure, dropout, depression, low self-esteem, involvement in a delinquent lifestyle during adolescence, peer and teacher rejection, and vocational problems (Kamps & Tankersley, 1996). EI has an important impact on academic success, even after personality and academic intelligence are statistically controlled (Marquez, Martin, & Brackett, 2006; Lyons & Schneider, 2005). Trait EI is also an important factor in the academic achievement of university and high school students (e.g., Austin, Evans, Goldwater, & Potter, 2005; Downey, Mountstephen, Lloyd, Hansen, & Stough, 2008; Parker, Summerfeldt, Hogan, & Majeski, 2004). In addition, it is an important predictor when academic success is conceptualised as dropout versus completion of Year 1 at university (Parker et al., 2004; Qualter et al., 2012), and exclusions versus non-exclusions in secondary school (Petrides et al., 2004; Qualter et al., 2012).

The findings about how social and emotional competencies influence students’ academic performance led to the development of different programmes to support the development of these competencies in school. Socio-emotional programmes for elementary school students, such as Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (Greenberg, Kusché, & Mihalic, 1998) and Second Step (Grossman et al., 1997), as well as compressive multi-componential programmes like Fast Track (Bierman et al., 1999) have been shown to affect several of the core socio-emotional competencies, including self-control, a moral belief system, and decision-making skills, as well as co-occurring behavioural problems. These effects were also shown to improve academic achievement and reduce early school leaving.

Several studies have investigated the impact of different programmes for developing EI (e.g. Catalano et al., 2002; Greenberg et al., 2003; Clouder et al., 2008). Their findings show an important effect of such programmes in all institutional settings from kindergarten to high school. The results of a meta-analysis (Greenberg et al., 2003) that analysed 300 social and emotional learning programmes show that such programmes produce significant improvements in students’ school performance. A study by Nelis and colleagues (2009) found that young adults who participated in an intensive emotional training course significantly improved their emotional intelligence levels. This improvement was also sustained six months later. In the same study (Nelis et al., 2009), the authors detected three kinds of design problems limiting the majority of EI training programmes they examined: 1) most are not based on a solid theoretical model; 2) they only target certain dimensions of emotional intelligence; and 3) they do not use control groups. In light of these findings, the focus when developing future EI programmes and methods should be on overcoming these shortcomings. The CER method for children and adolescents presented below tries to surmount these problems. It is based on a theoretical model – the CER model (Milivojević, 2008). Moreover, it is a multi-component model that focuses and explains different dimensions of EI, including emotional awareness, emotional regulation, personal autonomy, social competence etc.

The CER model explains the cognitive, physiological and behavioural processes that occur in the course of a person’s pleasant and unpleasant emotion. Further, it explains the processes that lead to the emotion and the processes that happen subsequently and presents them in a circular sequence. It helps someone develop emotional awareness and emotional regulation by helping them perceive, understand and manage their emotions.

The CER model (Milivojević, 2008) describes seven steps which explain different phases in the process of the emotion arising and the emotional reaction being formed: stimulus situation, perception, apperception, valorisation, physiological reaction, action tendency, thinking, action (see the figure).

The CER method for children and adolescents (Rutar Leban, 2011) was developed based on the theory and model of the CER (Milivojević, 2008). The reasoning behind the method’s development was the idea that by talking to the child through the whole process of the emotional reaction while he/she is experiencing it an adult helps them raise awareness and regulation about the inner cognitive processes they experience. If the child is frequently exposed to this method, they can eventually internalise it and achieve greater emotional awareness (Rutar Leban, 2011). The method consists of five steps (having adapted the 8 steps of the original CER model): (1) helping the child to calm down; (2) asking what happened; (3) summarising and naming the emotion the child is experiencing; (4) helping the child to evaluate and valorise the situation; and (5) helping the child to think about the strategy for his/her action.

Figure 1. The CER method for children and adolescents (Rutar Leban, 2011) based on the CER model (Milivojević, 2008)

In Figure 1, the five steps of the CER method for children and adolescents are presented (in orange) relative to the CER model (in blue).

1. Helping the child to calm down

If the child is experiencing a very strong emotion (this usually happens when experiencing unpleasant emotions), we must first calm them down so they are able to follow the conversation.

Example: a 13-year-old boy gets a D in a maths test and starts crying during the lesson. His usual/average grade in maths is C.

If the child is still too overwhelmed by the emotion and unable to participate in the conversation, the adult needs to give them the right space to be able to calm down. Sometimes, the only thing that helps a child overwhelmed by emotion to calm down is to be alone in a quiet and safe space.

2. Asking what happened

In this step, the adult investigates the situation (stimulus situation) in which the emotion has arisen. It is important that the adult does not assume which emotion the child is experiencing before they hear what happened. The emotion arises according to the child’s perception and apperception of the situation which is unique for each individual and includes their previous experiences and beliefs about the situation. Hearing the child’s understanding of the stimulus situation enables the adult to detect the emotion the child is experiencing and the reasons for this emotion to have arisen (the child’s valorisation process).

Question adults ask in this step: What happened? What is bothering you? Why does this bother you?

Example:
When the boy stops crying, the teacher can start the conversation.
Teacher (T): What is bothering you? (Even though the teacher suspects the boy is crying because of the grade, they need to ensure this is really the reason and find out why this grade is so important.)
Child ©: this grade.
T: Why is this grade bothering you?
C: I don’t think the grade is fair.
T: I see. Why do you think the grade is not fair?
C: Because you did not tell us that the circle circumference will also be in the test and I did not study it

3. Summarising and naming the emotion the child is experiencing

When the adult has enough information and has detected the emotion the child is experiencing, they name it and thus label all the physical sensations and mental processes they are experiencing.

Example:
T: I see you are angry at me, because you think I was unfair.
C: Yes.

It is important that the adult identifies and names the right emotion. For example, we feel anger when someone unjustifiably interferes with our plans (e.g. sister A takes sister B’s favourite dress without asking and sister B planned to wear it, but now she can’t). We are sad when we forever lose someone (or something) very dear and close to us (e.g. a relative or a pet dies; a dear and close friend moves far away) (Milivojević, 2008). Adults tend to confuse the feeling of anger and sadness in children. Children tend to cry when they are angry because crying is their first tool for expressing an unpleasant emotion and they are still learning the right way to express it. On the other hand, adults usually cry only when they are sad. That is why adults link crying with sadness and tend to ask crying children why they are sad. In this way, they communicate the wrong message to children. That is why it is important to investigate the child’s perception and apperception before making assumptions about their emotions. Moreover, it is important to be able to define different emotions.

4. Helping the child to evaluate and valorise the situation

In this step, the adult summarises the child’s valorisation of the stimulus situation. The adult describes the importance and significance of the situation for the child.

Example:
T: I see you really value fairness in a relationship. I understand that this is why you decided to be angry at me.
Hearing the valorisation of the stimulus situation in this way helps children understand that it is their decision which starts the emotional reaction. It gives them control over their emotions and thus shows them they can regulate them successfully.

5. Helping the child to think about the strategy for his/her action

The last step includes helping the child think about the actions they can take to stop the emotional reaction they are feeling. The adult’s role in this step is to encourage the child to elaborate different strategies that can lead to calming the emotional reaction down and establishing the previous equilibrium and the natural, calm inner feeling. According to the CER model, when experiencing an unpleasant emotion we have three possible strategies for stopping the emotion:

• changing our own valorisation of the situation, e.g. changing our own view and understanding of the stimulus situation;
• changing the other person’s behaviour, e.g. changing the view and understanding of the other person involved and make them behave according to our own ideas; and
• changing or avoiding the environment in which the stimulus situation is constantly occurring.

The role of the adult in this step is to help the child understand they have all these possibilities for acting. The adult also guides the child through the process of understanding which strategy is the most effective in this specific situation. It depends on the maturity of the child how much the adult will direct and guide this process. When the child is still very young (2 to 5 years old), the adult talks them through the whole process. Children older than 10 years and familiar with this method can do the thinking almost by themselves; they just need the initial direction.

Example:
T: What do you think you can do that will change how you feel?
Teacher can help the boy understand that he has three different possibilities. He can ask other students if they knew about the circle circumference being part of the test and try to understand why he did not know (changing his own view and understanding of the stimulus situation). He can also try to convince the teacher to change his grade (changing the other person’s behaviour). Or he can find a way to avoid the teacher he thinks is unfair by changing class, or even the school, maybe skipping school or even dropping out of school (changing or avoiding the environment in which the stimulus situation is constantly occurring).

As already emphasised, the CER method for children and adolescents helps students develop different dimensions of EI, including emotional awareness, emotional regulation, personal autonomy, social competence etc. In the table below, we define the EI dimensions children and adolescents develop in each of the method’s five steps.

Table 1: EI dimensions developed with the CER method for children and adolescents

The method can be used with children aged from 2 years up. Teachers and other adults who work with students can use this method in their everyday communication with children and adolescents whenever they experience an unpleasant emotion. With younger children, the method can also be applied while reading stories where a literary character is experiencing unpleasant emotions. The teacher can use the method to guide students through the understanding of the emotional experience of the character in the book. In the same way, the method can be used with teenagers, for example by analysing an emotional experience that really happened to a teenager or using a book appropriate for teenagers. The method helps children and teenagers develop their emotional awareness and regulation. It supports students in their understanding of perceiving, using, understanding and regulating emotions. Further, using this method especially helps teenagers who have less social and emotional support in their families and usually have less motivation to participate in ESL programmes that are not part of the obligatory school lessons. These teenagers are also more at risk for behavioural problems, lower achievements and ESL (Gagnon et al., 1995; Haapasalo & Tremblay, 1994; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). Supporting the development of children’s and adolescents’ social and emotional skills and competencies is an important part of ESL prevention in schools.

At approximately the age of 15, the average teenager can understand the CER model if we explain it to them by showing them the model. They are able to relate the model to their emotional experiences and it can thus be used in a workshop or other activities on EI in the school environment (Rutar Leban, 2011).

Studies show that the relationships and emotional processes students experience in school strongly affect how and what they learn (Elias et al., 1997). Emotional competencies support the cognitive and social development of young children (Denham, 2007) and predict academic achievement (Izard, 2002; Izard et al., 2001). Thus, the development of social and emotional competencies has become an important goal of the education system.

Different ESL programmes have been developed and implemented in schools to help students improve in this area. The impact of these programmes has been proven to be positive (e.g. Catalano et al., 2002; Greenberg et al., 2003; Clouder et al., 2008), showing significant improvements in students’ school performance (Greenberg et al., 2003).

Besides SL programmes that are usually implemented in schools outside the basic compulsory curriculum, there are methods that can be used during everyday interaction with students and can support students’ emotional and social development. One of these methods is the CER method for children and adolescents (Rutar Leban, 2011) that was developed based on the Circular Emotional Reaction theory (Milivojević, 2008). While using this method adults guide children and adolescents through their experience of an unpleasant emotion and help them raise emotional awareness and regulation through the following steps: 1. Helping the child calm down; 2. Asking what happened; 3. Summarising and naming the emotion the child is experiencing; 4. Helping the child to evaluate and valorise the situation; and 5. Helping the child to think about the strategy for his/her action. Especially with teenagers who already have behavioural and academic problems in school and thus experience many unpleasant emotions in the school environment, this method can help them understand why they feel this way and how they can react to stop the emotional reaction. Better emotional competencies and skills can help adolescents have better academic achievements (Izard, 2002) and represent an important preventive factor for ESL and persistent antisocial behaviour (Gagnon et al., 1995; Haapasalo & Tremblay, 1994; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996).