Educational Diagnostics of Lecturer’s Emotional Intelligence through Ethical Decision Making

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University College Dublin, 5-6 September 2005

Loreta Rudaitiene

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Institute of Educational Studies

Kaunas University of Technology

Lithuania

Abstract

Empirical findings from deep critical incident interviews, conducted with 10 (N=10) outstanding and very average lecturers at Kaunas universities in Lithuania (May-June, 2004) are analyzed to reveal manifestation of emotional intelligence in ethical aspect (EIeth). The research instrument is ethical decision making, consisting of the five stages: 1) perception and identification of ethical problem; 2) understanding, formulation and correction; 3) process; 4) taking final ethical decision; 5) implementation and consequences; a non-standardized questionnaire with open-ended questions was created; the main EI criteria weree adopted from BarOn test EQ-i (1997). The qualitative content analysis of the recorded texts confirm the assumption that ethical dimension of EI is perceived and identified in the process of respondents‘self-development of EI into emotional competence (EIK). Strong manifestation of EIeth is identified during the second stage of ethical decision making, when respondents strove to sustain Congruity between Self-Regard and Empathy (SR<EM), seeking to preserve dignity and honesty in disposition to Self through disposition to Other. These findings confirm ethical and educational potential of emotional intelligence to influence professional self-study and self-development by building personal professional attitude to emotional problem and its solution, deeper understanding personal professional responsibility and, consequently, creating personal academic theory and ethics. Ethical and educational power of emotional intelligence stipulates perspective for the development of emotional competence as the competence of professional personality. The model of lecturers’ EIeth is given, the data about the overall manifestation of lecturers’ EIeth as well as its weaknesses, thus, reflecting areas for self-development, are presented.

Key Terms: emotional intelligence, self-regard, empathy, ethical decision making, personal professional attitude, personal professional ethics

Introduction

With reference to the analysis (Rudaitiene, 2005) of different notions (Bar-On, 1997; 2000; Bar-On & Parker, 2000; Salovej & Mayer, 1990; Mayer, Caruso & Salovej, 2000; Goleman, 1995; 1998; Saarni, 2000, etc.) and critical comments (Boler, 1999) of emotional intelligence, ethical and consequently educational potential of emotional intelligence (EI), needs to be evaluated.

The most recent review of the related literature reveals issues of how morals and values are associated with EI. According to Boler (1999), emotional intelligence “benefits the globalized workplace, it runs real risks to employ social control by imposing emotional rules or prescriptions; it doesn’t teach values, but it imparts so called “neutral” skills, purely individualistic with no considerable attention to political and cultural differences and analyses”. Goleman (2003) speculates that “certain aspects of EI may tend to promote pro-social behavior”. The author (ibid) adds that “there are instances of Machiavellian types who use EI abilities to manipulate people when living according to the stance that the ends justify the means”. Consequently, the concept of EI needs EI theory extension and clarification to justify its ethical aspect (further it will be referred to as EI-eth).

The research problem follows: what and how peculiarities of lecturer’s emotional intelligence manifest through ethical decision making? The research aim is to disclose expression of lecturers’ emotional intelligence through ethical decision making.

Theoretical background of empirical research

Justification of the concept of EI in ethical aspect is based (Rudaitiene, 2005) on Griseri’s (1998) theory of ethical change. According to Griseri (1998), when sympathy disturbs stability and consistency blocks inertia in the system of values of a person, tension is created, which is frequently manifested itself as doubt. Sympathy, being an emotional element, works in relation to the disposition to self and how it relates to others; while consistency, as a cognitive element, relates to self-concept and its influence on others. Tension or doubt stimulates ethical decision making during which value perception and value change most often occur.

The notion of self-disposition based on one’s disposition to other when a person seeks to equalize discrepancies between self and other is the main area of EI-eth (Rudaitiene, 2005). The analysis (ibid) claims that a disturbed balance of the value system of a person implies his(her) perception, that certain action is not congruent with the demands of ideal principles; the incongruity is experienced more or less emotionally, so a person tries to soften emotions, by making ethical decision, based on overall power of EI. Scientific background of the research is based on the process of an individual‘s effort to balance the tension between one‘s self-regard and empathy (SG<EM) by using the whole power of EI, and on construction of positive self-disposition towards the arisen doubt, manifested by the motto ‘I win/We both win‘ (see Figure 1. Theoretical Model: Expression of Lecturer‘s Emotional Intelligence in the Ethical Aspect (EIeth).

Main objectives of empirical research

The empirical part of the study specifically focuses on these three objectives:

First, to justify empirically the model “Manifestation Peculiarities of Lecturer‘s Emotional Intelligence in the Aspect of Ethical Decision Making“and, consequently, to define theoretical notion of Emotional Intelligence in the ethical aspect (EIeth).

Second, to diagnose manifestation peculiarities of lecturer‘s emotional intelligence (EI) in the process of ethical decision making on the issues, related to academic communication with students.

Third, to obtain empirical results about strengths and weaknesses of lecturer‘s EIeth and to predict areas of attention in the perspective of self-development and self-realization of lecturer‘s professional personality.

Research instruments

The research instrument was ethical decision making. It consisted of the following five stages: 1) perception and identification of ethical problem; 2) understanding, formulation and correction of ethical problem; 3) process of ethical decision making; 4) taking final ethical decision; 5) implementation and consequences of the final decision.

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break 1 / break 2 / break 3 / break 4 / break 5
perception and identification of problem / understanding and formulation of problem / process of decision making:
creating and evaluating alternatives / taking final decision
·  predicting consequences
·  defining short-term and long-term goals / implementation and consequences of final decision
® / ® / ® / ® / ® / ®
/ perception and identification of
tension
between self-regard and empathy / Understanding tension between self-regard and empathy
Ethical self-testing
Search for possible ethical traps
Testing academic ethics in action /

Formation of personal professional responsibility

clarification, checking and evaluation of personal professional attitude to problem /

Formation of personal professional responsibility

Possible change of self and other
Possible reconstruction of inner goals / POSSIBLE INNER CHANGE
in search of positive, respective and emphatic academic relationships / lecturer‘s competemnces of emotional intelligence
real
self / ¬ /
ideal
SELF
®
­
/

SETTING PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE TO THE PROBLEM

formulation criteria and goals of the problem solution / professional personality
In academic performance
¯ / EMOTIONAL / AWARENESS / ¯ / ¯

SELF

SELF-REGARD

to know self
® ® / ¬ / ¬
OTHER
EMPATHY
to know other ­
® / lecturer‘s personal professional theory and personal professional ethics
­ / ®
To defend self / morale
/ To defend other / Lecturer‘s Professional identity
“i win”
I WIN BECAUSE /
“other wins”
WE BOTH WIN / ¯
­ / fluctuations of congruity between self-regard and empathy
vulnerability of personality
­ ­ / ­ / ­ ­ / ­ / ­ ­
utilitarism / moral principles / deaontology
FORMATION OF PERSONAL ACADEMIC ETHICS

E x p r e s s i o n o f L e c t u r e r ‘ s E m o t i o n a l I n t e l l i g e n c e (Ethical Aspect)

/ ¯
¬ ¬ / ¬ / ¬

Figure 1. Theoretical Model: Expression of Lecturer‘s Emotional Intelligence in the ethical aspect (EIeth)

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Since the main purpose of the current study was to explore the potential of EI in the ethical aspect (EIeth) thus BarOn test EQ-i (1997) was adopted, because this instrument, as the author states, has “the least amount of overlap with cognitive tests, a greater degree of overlap with personality tests, and the greatest degree of domain overlap with other emotional and social intelligence (ESI) measures” (BarOn, 2005). BarOn (2000) defines this model in terms of an array of traits and abilities related to emotional and social knowledge that influence our overall ability to effectively cope with environmental demands and as such, it can be viewed as a model of psychological well-being and adaptation. Other measures of EI, namely, “MEIS (Multifactor Emotional Intelligence Scale) and its successor MSCEIT (a measure of Mayer and Salovej’s model of emotional Intelligence, 2002 correlates with traditional measures of intelligence, while Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI, Goleman and Boyatzis, 2001) assesses the emotional competencies (EIK) that reflect the skills of emotional intelligence of individuals in organizations” (Goleman, 2003). Our research makes an assumption that ethical dimension of EI might be perceived and identified in the process of individual’s self-development of EI into emotional competence (EIK) (Rudaitiene, 2005). Goleman (2003) cited Gardner - “no intelligence is moral or immoral in itself; certainly, it should manifest in the performance of inner reflection”.

A non-standardized questionnaire with open-ended ethically oriented questions was created to conduct deep critical incident interview, which took for about two hours each and it was tape-recorded. All ethical considerations were preserved: sufficient information was provided to participants and their consent was obtained, they were ensured that all information would be recorded in accordance with the Privacy Principles, and confidentiality would be maintained. A sample of ten (N=10) respondents involved 5 outstanding and 5 very average lecturers from a Lithuanian university, rated by their students (N=75) after 4 years of their academic interaction.

At the beginning of an interview the respondents were provided with the results of > the previous research on ethical problems at university (Rudaitiene, 2002); > critical opinions of students’ after serious discussions on real-academic-life examples that caused conflicts at university, critical information from Lithuanian students’ organization and the mass media with the goal to inspire lecturers to open themselves and disclose their emotional intelligence at work, regarding their recent deep reflections and decisions either already made or in progress.

.

The qualitative content analysis of the recorded texts to identify manifestation of EIeth was based on the following steps (Zydziunaite, 2002): 1) multiple reading of the texts; 2) identification of manifest categories and subcategories, their substantiation, based on extracted evidence from the total data; 3) interpretation of the categories with subcategories included. The third step was enriched by extracted evidence from the texts due to the following rule of methodological concept of hermeneutics: interpretation of the text occurs in its original context, when mental “movement” among separate parts goes to the whole and back.

Results of Empirical Research and their Interpretation

FIRST STAGE OF ETHICAL DECISION MAKING: Emotional perception of ethical problem and its identification

Question: Have you/How have you perceived and identified ethical problem?

§  Results (strengths). The content of respondents’ answers to the first question disclosed the following components of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and their justifying categories: Impulse Control (IC): control of negative emotions; Emotional Self-Awareness (ES): emotional sensitivity; sense of emotion – an impulse to hear oneself and start self-reflection; >emotions as an aid to perceive a problem and its reason; >presenting emotion as a value-indicator; Optimism (OP): positive attitude in stressful situation

Impulse Control (IC) and the justifying category control of negative emotions was shown by lecturer’s ability to control destructive emotions and the states of instability, suppress inner unpleasantness, recognize and evaluate one’s own impulsive reactions. All this as a whole presupposed lecturer’s ability to stand aside from one’s own emotions and concentrate.

Emotional Self-Awareness (ES) and the justifying category emotional sensitivity was disclosed by respondents in its positive sense through demonstrating lecturer’s ability to experience emotions and with the help of them intuitively perceive the significance of the situational tension and direct attention to inner processes of feeling and thinking.

Emotional Self-Awareness (ES) and the justifying categories sense of emotion as an impulse to hear oneself and start of self-reflection; > emotions as an aid to perceive a problem and its reason were shown by interview responses stating, that a respondent after experiencing emotions and managing to retreat from them, felt necessity to stay alone and start reflective thinking, listen to self, concentrate feelings, attention, perception and memory, that is, perform emotional self-perception. Here a lecturer involved a search for inner resources from non-verbal communication – pose, gestures, mime, eye contacts and voice intonations. A respondent stopped and observed self, recognized one’s own emotional habits, directed his/her attention to manifestation of students’ impulses, that urged all-sided perception of the problem. Emotions were disclosed as a source of inner information, helping perceive a problem and its causes.

Emotional Self-Awareness (ES) and the justifying category >presenting emotion as a value-indicator was displayed by lecturer’s ethical anxiety and particularly intimate relationship with oneself, when emotions, being a source of inner information, helped a respondent perceive one’s self-value and inner strength. In other words, lecturer’s start of contemplation, a wish to clarify problematical situation and understand it in ethical aspect – “what bad you’re doing, what good you’re doing” were observed. The data disclosed lecturer’s need for choosing value and moral principles, for inner strategy, for meaningful academic performance.

Optimism (OP) and the justifying category positive attitude in stressful situation was shown from respondent’s strive to sustain tendency of positive thinking, the source if which, according to a lecturer, was “good conscience and awareness of inner truth”. Consequently, this showed that respondent’s emotions were directed the right path – towards ethical considerations.