Design, implementation, and evaluation of an emotional education programme in Primary Education

ABSTRACT

Through this study we tried to evaluate and improve the level of emotional competence of the students of a primary school. Emotional competence was evaluated by the teacher in 135 students using the Teacher Child Rating Scale of Hightower et al. [1986. The Teacher- Child Rating Scale: A brief objective measure of elementary children’s school problem behaviors and competencies. School Psychology Review, 15]. A programme to improve the emotional competence of the students was designed based on the data obtained in the initial evaluation and implemented with an experimental group (n = 72, 35 girls and 37 boys). Sessions were given one hour per week for 20 weeks. Using a quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent control group and pre-test post-test measures, the effectiveness of the programme for the improvement of emotional competence was checked. The results showed improvements in the variables of Sociability and Disturbing Behaviours within the experimental group. In addition, assessment of the participants’ satisfaction yielded very positive results.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional intelligence
• emotional competence
• emotional education
• affective and social education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sonia López Díaz-Villabella received a doctorate in Educational Research: Teaching and Learning from the University of Alicante with a qualification of summa cum laude. She works as a special education teacher and head of studies at C.E.I.P Enric Valor de Alicante and has presented papers in various national and international conferences related to emotional education.

Raquel Gilar-Corbí received her PhD in educational psychology in 2002 and has been a lecturer in the Department of Developmental Psychology and Didactics at the University of Alicante, Spain, since 2003. She is currently the director of the Department of Developmental Psychology and Didactics. Dr Gilar has managed and participated in numerous research projects, both national and international. Her research interests are focused on intelligence, underachievement, high abilities, emotional intelligence, and teacher training.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) under Grant number EDU2015-64562-R.