Exploring Emotional Intelligence with Students

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Exploring Emotional Intelligence with Students

• ACPA Pre-Convention Workshop 10
• Philadelphia, PA
• April 1, 2004

Dr. Allen Lomax, Western Carolina University Dr.
Gary Low, Texas AM University-Kingsville Ms.
Mona Jackson, Texas AM University-Kingsville
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Who are we?

• Gary
• Researched the area of EI for the past 25 years
• Developed EI assessment surveys
• Emotional Intelligence Achieving Academic and
  Career Excellence (Prentice Hall 2003)
• Allen
• Counselor and higher education administrator
• Author and director of the Title V grant that
  funded the Javelina EI Program
• Emotionally transformed advocate for Emotionally
  Intelligent Organizations
• Mona
• 15 years Higher Education experience.
• Director of the Javelina EI Program, (Spring 2002
  Spring 2004)
• Developed and coordinated the implementation of
  the university-based Seven Step EI Program in
  student success classes.
• Provided EI Training to faculty, administrators,
  and students.

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Goals for Today

• Share a positive and practical model of human
  behavior.
• Have an enjoyable day.
• Have a highly productive afternoon.
• Be comfortable with us and each other.

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Objectives for Today

• Operationally Define Emotional Intelligence as an
  education based model.
• Explore applications of a self-assessment survey
  of EI skills.
• Experience one emotional skills assessment
  approach for self and student development.
• Connect EI with traditional student development
  models.
• Draft a campus plan for implementation.

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Reasons why students leave college

• 1.

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4 KEYS TO SUCCESS AND HEALTH

• HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS
• TRUE FEELING OF BELONGING
• PERCEIVED COMPETENCE
• HEALTHY BALANCE BETWEEN THE EMOTIONAL AND
  COGNITIVE MIND

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DEFINITION OF EI

• EI is a confluence of learned abilities to know
  and value self, develop and maintain healthy
  relationships, work effectively with others, and
  manage daily stress.

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EI is related to

• High levels of achievement
• Personal commitment to self-defined standards of
  excellence
• Goal Persistence
• Reaching the goal despite difficulties or
  stressors
• Physical and Emotional Health
• Healthy ways of living.
• Career Success
• Jobs and Family
• Leadership
• Leadership is learned!

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RESEARCH DERIVED BELIEFS ABOUT EI

• EI is a learned ability.
• EI is (may be) the single most important variable
  in achievement, career development, leadership,
  satisfaction.
• Learning EI requires an active, caring,
  person-centered, and self-directed learning
  process.
• EI consists of skills and competencies that can
  be learned.
• EI is a necessary foundation to build success in
  education, work, and life.
• Emotional Intelligence helps break the habit of
  Emotional Reactivity.

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EMOTIONAL LEARNING SYSTEM

• EXPLORE Person-Centered Assessment
• IDENTIFY Skills Areas to Improve
• UNDERSTAND Key Skills Impact
• LEARN Develop, Strengthen, Enhance Skills
• IMPROVE Use Model EI Skills, Behaviors,
  Attitudes Daily

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EI Skills and Achievement

• Significant Relationships
• Assertion
• Drive Strength
• Commitment Ethic
• Time Management
• Stress Management

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EI Skills and Achievement

• Inverse Relationships
• Aggression
• Change Orientation

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Emotionally Intelligent Characteristics

• Emotionally
• Reactive
• Overwhelmed too often
• Reactive to stress
• Self-doubting
• Resistant to change
• Pessimistic
• Relies on reactive habits
• Continually makes the same mistakes

• Emotionally
• Intelligent
• Resilient
• Planned response to stress
• Self-confident
• Flexible, open to change
• Optimistic
• Relies on positive habits
• Learns from experience

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THINGS TO REMEMBER

• Excellence an Individual Process that is
  Self-Defined and Directed
• Intentional Growth, Development, Change is a
  Skilled Choice
• Successful People Realize their Own Strengths
  Weaknesses
• Problem Areas (Weaknesses) are Perceived as
  Challenges and Achievable
• Base Self Worth Integrity on Things that You
  Can Control Achieve

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Your Profile

• Scoring
• Lets connect the dots!
• Visual Picture of EI Skills

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Garys Profile
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Allens Profile
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Monas Profile
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Group Work

• What does your profile look like?
• Identify 2 areas of strength
• Identify 2 areas that need to be developed
• How do you use your EI skill (strength) of ?
• Strategy(s) you use when you are in difficult
  situations?
• After discussion add 2 strategies shared today
  which you can practice to enhance your develop
  areas

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BREAK10 Minutes
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Emotional Intelligence and Student Development
Theories A Unifying Theme and A Research
Challenge
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Emotional Intelligence Connections with Student
Development Theories
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Psychosocial Theories

• Chickering
• 1st Vector-Competence
• 3 tines of the fork (intellectual, physical,
  interpersonal)
• 2nd Vector (Managing Emotions)

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Psychosocial Theories

• Schlossbergs Transition Theory
• The transition process is a persons reactions to
  the transitions over time

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Psychosocial Theories

• Schlossbergs Transition Theory
• Emotional reactions are integral to the 4 Ss of
  coping
• Situation (trigger, timing, control, role change,
  duration, previous experience, concurrent stress,
  assessment)
• Self (socioeconomic status, gender, age, stage of
  life, ego development, commitment)
• Support (intimate relationships, family, friends,
  community)
• Strategies (modify, control meaning, manage
  stress)

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Cognitive Theories

• At one time I flirted with the idea that we dont
  even have an interior life, that behavior is all
  that matters and theres no reality to the
  interior life. I think this is one of many
  reasons for academias emphasis on positivism,
  the ascendance of science, which deals with
  things you can directly observe and measure. The
  implication is that the interior either doesnt
  exist or, if it does, it is not very important
  because it cant be objectified. Astin (2003)

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Cognitive Theories

• For a long time Ive been arguing that we havent
  paid enough attention in higher education to the
  affective side of our students development
  their beliefs, their values, their politics and
  that weve been swayed to focused on how they do
  on tests and whether they follow the rules and
  regulations and how many credits they earn and
  their GPAs. The latter focuses on the exterior
  self and life and reflects a bias toward the
  cognitive rather than the affective.

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Cognitive Theories

• I have been worrying about this because the
  worlds problems are not going to be solved by
  math and science and technology they are human
  problems, problems of beliefs and values and
  feelings expressed, for example, by racism or
  nationalism or religious fundamentalism. It
  would behoove higher education to begin to attend
  more to these aspects of students development.
  Astin (2003)

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Emotionally Intelligent Development
Cognitive Theories

• Emotionally Reactive
• Overwhelmed too often
• Reactive to stress
• Self-doubting
• Resistant to change
• Pessimistic
• Relies on reactive habits
• Continually makes the same mistakes

• Emotionally Intelligent
• Resilient
• Planned response to stress
• Self-confident
• Flexible, open to change
• Optimistic
• Relies on positive habits
• Learns from experience

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Cognitive Development Theories

• Perrys Theory

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Cognitive Development Theories

• Baxter-Magolda Epistemological Reflection

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Cognitive Development TheoriesKohlberg and
Gilligan

• Kohlberg male population
• Gilligan both genders and development is
  relationship dependent

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Typology Theories of Development

• Hollands Theory of Vocational Personalities and
  Environment
• Myers-Briggs Typology
• In general, the typology theories are interested
  in peoples preferences for environments,
  behaviors, modes of thinking, and avenues of
  emotional reaction. For these theories to work
  most effectively as a developmental tool, one
  must be willing and able to trust what their
  feelings tell them and confidently take action
  based upon decisions arising from how one feels.

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Emotional Intelligence An Avenue for
Connecting Student and Academic Affairs
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Avenues for Connecting SA and AA

• Fundamentally different approaches

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Avenues for Connecting SA and AA

• We asked them about spirituality, meaning,
  purpose, and value and were amazed at how ready
  they were to talk. According to some of the
  people we interviewed, the interviews were almost
  therapeutic they were so glad to have an
  opportunity to talk about these issues. And
  everyone agreed that academia doesnt create safe
  spaces for such conversations to occur. Astin
  (2003)

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Avenues for Connecting SA and AA

• One of the early assumptions as this study was
  being undertaken, was that faculty and students
  place relatively little value upon human
  relationship building in the educational process
  because of the institutional structures that
  support autonomy and rational objectivism. One of
  the most revealing surprises coming from this
  study was that faculty and students, despite
  current institutional structures, do place a
  great deal of importance upon the establishment
  and the development of human relationships within
  the many different aspects of the learning
  process. Lomax (2000)

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Elements of Connections

• Engagement
• Behavioral Skills
• Leadership Skills
• Self-confidence
• Inter and Intra-personal Skills
• Power of Building the Self, Continue Learning
• Rumaldo Juarez, EI Institute, February 26, 2004

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Javelina EI Program

• University-wide Program
• Freshman Success Course
• Engages student academically experientially
• Interdisciplinary team of faculty,
  administrators, and graduate/undergraduate
  students

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EI Program Data

• Involves all 5 undergraduate colleges
• 29 Sections of First Year/Foundations Course
• 26 Foundations Course Instructors
• 12 Guest Presenters (Faculty, Staff,
  Administrators)
• 28 Student Group Facilitators (undergraduate and
  graduate level)
• 864 Students

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Javelina 7 Step EI Program

• Step 1 Positive Assessment of EI skills
• 1201 Instructor
• Steps 2 3 Emotional Intelligence and its
  significance to college success
• Trained EI Guest Presenter and student group
  facilitator
• Steps 4 6 Group Work
• Trained student group facilitator
• Step 5 Homework
• Step 7 Turn in EI Packet

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Group Work

• What does the student profile look like?
• Identify 2 areas of strength
• Identify 2 areas that need to be developed
• How could students use strength EI Skills?
• Strategy(s) students could use when they are in
  difficult situations?
• After discussion add 2 strategies shared today
  which students can practice to enhance their
  develop areas

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Student 1 Profile
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Student 2 Profile
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Student 3 Profile
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Student 4 Profile
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Student 5 Profile
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Student 6 Profile
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Campus Applications

• Texas AM University-Kingsville
• Western Carolina University

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Potential Resources

• Womens Center
• Counseling Center
• Student Activities
• Residence Life
• Career Center
• Advising Center
• International Office
• Rec. Sports
• Service Learning

• Athletics
• Library
• Classroom
• Faculty
• 1st year experience
• Internships
• Commuter Services
• Graduate Services
• Multicultural

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Your own campus

• Identify the student population that you
  predominantly work with on your campus.
• Identify an Emotional Intelligence Skill need,
  for that population.
• Identify present Campus Resources that can be
  used to help students enhance EI skill
  development.
• Identify some strategies offered by these
  resources.
• Draft a plan to link present Campus Resources to
  your students in order to develop their EI Skills.

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• Questions
• and
• Evaluations

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Contact Information
Emotional Intelligence A New Student
Development Model.A Paper Presented at the 2004
National Conference of the American College
Personnel Association in Philadelphia Pennsylvania
Emotional Intelligence Effectively Bridging the
Gap Between High School and College
http//education.tamuk.edu/eiconf/.
Emotional Intelligence Institute