It is undeniable that teacher education is undergoing rigorous attention in policymakers across various countries that belong to the OECD (White, Down, Mills, Shore, & Woods, 2020). Due to the increasing interest in improving teacher education, there is a significant amount of literature looking specifically at emotions in education. At present, both in the academic and professional fields, there is a confluence of studies that relate emotional competencies with constructs such as Emotional Intelligence (EI) (Le Boterf, 2001; Levy-Leboyer, 1997). Teachers understand that cognitive skills contribute and configure the affective domain and the affective, in turn, conditions the cognitive (Hernández, 2002). When educators are trained in emotional competencies, they provide their students with an emotional education that allows them to develop the emotional skills necessary for life. Research has made links between social-emotional education and increased emotional and social competencies and academic learning (Durlak & Weissberg, 2005).

This multi-method research discusses the place of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in Initial teacher education (ITE) in two bachelor degrees in Australia and Chile. The exploration of the theory of EI in these two degrees provides fruitful insights. This research's main question is: How is EI (Emotional Intelligence) understood, enacted, and embedded in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and how does this compare in a different cultural context? This multi-method study aims to identify the importance and understanding of EI in pre-service teacher education. I, therefore, spotlighted pre-service teachers (PSTs) in regards to their perceptions and expectations. Besides, course architects were included according to their views and perspectives on EI's role in teacher education. For this to happen, methodological pluralism was employed. According to Barker and Pistrang (2012) methodological pluralism involves searching for value in different kinds and sources of information, where no method is superior to any other.

EI theory has been explored and documented in different fields such as nursing, construction, business and engineering, where people are expected to cope with high levels of stress and burnout (Kyriacou, 1987). Emotional Intelligence draws on how people react to different situations and how we can change our mood toward having better relationships with one another (Corcoran & Tormey, 2012). For these reasons, a teacher needs to be able to manage and control his or her own emotions so teaching can become more effective and productive. Simultaneously, teachers can apply their understanding of EI to support students’ social and affective aspects of their learning.

Australia and Chile are not the only countries that have voiced concerns about teacher education. In Europe, there has been a high recognition about the importance of emotions in learning and teachers’ wellbeing (Palomera, Fernández-Berrocal, & Brackett, 2008) particularly in the past year were unprecedented events changed the teaching practice into an online mode. These events have caused increasing demands and stress in teachers. For this reason, it is pivotal to question how and where teachers' emotions are supported with content- practice in their degrees.  

This research starts with an autoethnographical exploration of my insights on EI's role in different life stages. Following the constructionist paradigm, I investigated how I constructed my reality and perspective. I believe that people construct different realities, so to investigate EI's topic in ITE, I need to investigate the realities/perspectives of different stakeholders, particularly the key one’s, PSTs and course designers. The first round of data collection involved comparing 1st and 4th PSTs in a university in Australia. The second round included a comparison between 1st and 4th PSTs in a university in Chile. The last step implicated two-course architects of the two corresponding bachelor’s degrees. In the first and last year of their Bachelor of Education degree, three hundred and seventeen pre-service teachers in Australia and Chile were surveyed. The participants' age ranged between 18 and 38, females and males. Ethical approval from both universities was collected. The students were invited to answer an online survey using Qualtrics and Google Form. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics- frequency counts percentage distribution, inferential statistics (t-tests) and thematic analysis used for the open-ended questions in the survey. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), colour coding and member checking were used in the interviews. The use of both quantitative and qualitative methods also enabled an understanding of the participants’ perspectives, voices and understanding about the topic. The quantitative method was used as part of an online survey that was administered to PSTs in Australia and Chile. Questions that measured EI's level of confidence, the sources where PSTs find EI, ideas about EI, strategies about EI, etc were questions that gathered quantitative data. The second section of the survey used a qualitative component. In addition to this mixed-method survey, multi-method research was used in this study, including different methods that help to answer the research questions. Multi-method is used to “attack a research problem with an arsenal of methods that have non-overlapping weaknesses in addition to their complementary strengths” (Brewer & Hunter, 1989, p. 17). SPSS analysis was conducted following Pallant (2016), different steps were taken from the beginning such as considering reliability, credibility, preparing the survey, preparing a codebook, entering the data, defining variables, etc. Thematic analysis was used to organise themes as part of the survey’s open-ended responses (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

In exploring the research question, this study revealed several areas in which actions can have been taken to improve pre-service teachers’ preparation of EI in their course degree. Themes emerged from each of the multi-method studies; such themes are related to the importance of EI in ITE, the cultural considerations of the global and local (glocal) finding of EI in ITE and the need for explicit teaching of EI. Findings reveal a difference in percentage between the first and fourth year PSTs in Australia and Chile. This signifies the importance placed on EI for PSTs in 4th year as their entrance into the teaching profession will bring a different set of challenges regarding their learners' socio-emotional needs, especially looking at the context they live in. In the Australian data, PSTs viewed EI as a set of skills such as empathy and resilience persistence whereas in Chile, PSTs did as necessary for problem-solving responding appropriately. Chilean classrooms exist in a more volatile reality, so there is more awareness of EI's importance in such a context. Data showed that students reported the resources and teaching they had received was insufficient and there was a lack of understanding around how they could apply these theories in their future classrooms. The students reported that skills such as classroom management and behavioural aspects were not well covered in the units, leaving them with a feeling of uncertainty as to how to confront these issues in the classroom. This study concludes that EI is theory construct according to the participants’ expectations, perceptions and views. It has been demonstrated what PSTs understand by the theory; however, there is blurriness in EI's explicit practice. Course designers stipulated the importance of EI in the course degree but there is little clarity on where and how its implementation can occur.

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