This study started from categorizing the types of emotional intelligence among elementary students in the perspective of multiple emotional intelligence. The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between psychological home and classroom environment of elementary students and emotional intelligence, and to examine students'' characteristics for each emotional intelligence type.
The subject of the study was 512 students in the second, fourth and sixth grades at three elementary schools located in the D Metropolitan City. Among these students, 394 copies of survey answers from students who had siblings were used for analysis.
The summary of the core results achieved from this study is as below.
First, emotional intelligence types of elementary students were analyzed based on the level of sub-areas of emotional intelligence. As a result, four types that were statically significant were obtained. The types were: Low emotional intelligence (Type 1) which showed low in all subareas of emotional intelligence; Low emotional expression (Type 2) which showed only low in emotional expression; Low empathy/low emotional regulation (Type 3) which showed emotional perception and emotional expression above the average but low in empathy and emotional regulation; and High emotional intelligence (Type 4) which showed high in all subareas of emotional intelligence.
Second, the influence of elementary students'' psychological home and classroom environment on the type of emotional intelligence was analyzed. The psychological home and classroom environment of low emotional intelligence was the most negative compared to those of other three types. In order to make this group to have high emotional intelligence, the result showed that open communication with parents, support from parents, and warm and intimate relationship with siblings were needed. All these three factors were psychological home backgrounds in which the cause of overall lack in emotional intelligence could be found. Low emotional expression was a group in which communication with parents were the lowest. In order to turn this group into a high emotional intelligence group, open communication with parents and support from friends needed to be increased. Low empathy / low emotional regulation showed the second most positive psychological environment following after high emotional intelligence. The factor that differentiated this group from that of high emotional intelligence type the quality of sibling relationship. The warmer and more intimate the sibling relationship was, the more plausible to become the high emotional intelligence type. The common environmental factor that differentiated low emotional intelligence, low emotional expression and low empathy/ low emotional regulation was also the quality of the sibling relationship. There was no psychological environmental variable that differentiated low emotional expression and low empathy/ low emotional regulation, but merely gender difference which was a background variable.
Third, the characteristics of learners for each emotional intelligence type were examined. High emotional intelligence showed strong self-regulation efficacy and good behavior in class while low emotional intelligence demonstrated low self-regulation efficacy and bad behavior in class. It implied that there were differences in learners’ characteristics depended on the type of emotional intelligence.
To sum up, the results of the study suggest the following:
First, it is confirmed that the type of emotional intelligence can be classified by the current perspective of emotional intelligence interpretation that require to understand the strength and weakness of individuals’ emotional intelligence not to measure emotional intelligence in scores.
Second, a teaching-learning method customized for elementary students’ emotional intelligence type and learners’ characteristics can be suggested. In the case of learners with ‘low emotional intelligence’, it is priority to change the perspective on the environment positively by cooperating with family. It is necessary to increase self-pride of the learner with low emotional expression by providing experience of success. For the learner of ‘low empathy/ low emotional perception’, scaffolding that provides help in a learning environment is important. For the learner of ‘high emotional intelligence’, self-regulated learning will be effective.
The study on emotional intelligence among elementary students is expected to be able to demonstrate that effective methods and materials are diverse depended on students’ personal characteristics, and to provide detailed teaching guidelines.