Impact of Cognitive Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence on Vocational Educational Progress of Russian Students

Author(s):

Elena DmitrievaKira Zaitseva Svetlana Lanko Victor Gelman

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance

Format:

Poster

Session Information

MC_Poster, Poster Session Main Conference

Main Conference Poster Session

Time:

2010-08-27

12:15-13:15

Room:

2nd Floor Hall (M.B)/ II KRS AULA, Päärakennus / Main Building,

Chair:

Contribution

During the last two decades new demands on job competence and its development have been significant. So, VET during all working career is increasingly necessary to enable individuals to meet new challenges at the workplace (including the wide spreading of the IT almost in all areas of working activities).

Recent research in vocational education and training has dealt with economic and social issues, interdependencies between ageing, work and learning and some others, but the role of a person’s psychophysiological characteristics in successful VET has not been sufficiently discussed. Psychological research data have obtained many evidences that Emotional Intelligence accounts for success at the working place and happiness in life equally with Intellectual Intelligence (British Psychological Society (Press Release), 2008, Derevjanko, 2007, Izard, 2001, Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Ability to recognize emotional prosody in human speech is one of the components (cognitive characteristics) of this Emotional Intelligence (Dmitrieva & Gelman, 2008, Ljusin, 2004, Salovey & Mayer, 1990) .

The aim of the present research was to examine the relationships of psychophysiological characteristics of speech emotional prosody perception and their connection with the learning progress in ICT in adults of 18-79 years old. Older workers and their learning is an insufficiently researched topic and there are very few data available for adults aged over 60. So, the special emphasis was made for exploring the connections in the senior age group (65-79 -year olds).

Method

The sample consisted of 49 students of medical staff from hospitals, out-patient departments, dispensaries and medical institutes that were taking courses in ICT at St-Petersburg academy for postgraduate studies (Russia). Four age groups were considered: 18-34 y.o. (mean age 27,5±0,97), 35-49 y.o. (44,2±1,39), 50-64 y.o. (55,5±0,59) and 65-79 y.o. (71,7±1,35). Each student was presented by 48 test trials: 3 emotional intonations (positive, negative, and neutral) expressed by 4 speakers in 2 utterances at noise background and without it. Learning progress was estimated by the results of control tests according to five grade system of estimation. The stepwise linear regression analysis (LRA) of the data has been conducted, school progress being dependent variable and gender, age, accuracy of emotions’ recognition (AR) – independent ones.

Expected Outcomes

Findings indicate that the AR at noise background of positive emotional intonation (“joy”) decreases the most strongly as compared to other intonations for the listeners of all ages while the recognition accuracy of negative emotional intonation (“anger”) does not change for the eldest listeners (65-79 years old). So, the new data on the age changes of speech emotional intonation perception was obtained – 65-79-year-olds were considered for the first time. It was shown that all students were able to acquire practical IT skills, but the process had the individual peculiarities. LRA results have shown that the connection of psychophysiological characteristics of speech emotional prosody perception with the learning progress is different in listeners: 1) of 18-34 y.o. as compared to older ones; 2) of 65+ group as compared to younger groups. The data obtained proves the importance of Emotional Intelligence for the learning progress throughout all life span. Support by grant: RFH 10-06-00002а

References

Derevjanko, S.P. (2007) Role of Emotional Intelligence in the process of socio-psychological adaptation of students. Innovation technologies, №1, 92-95. Dmitrieva E.S., and Gel'man V.Y. 2008Developmental features of emotional prosody recognitions from vocal cues. International Journal of Psychology, 43(Issue ¾ ), 588 Emotional Intelligence Training May Boost Exam Performance (2008) British Psychological Society (Press Release). http://alevelpsychology.co.uk/news/intelligence/ emotional-intelligence-training-may-boost-exam-performance.html Izard, C.E. (2001) Emotional intelligence or adaptive emotions? Emotion, 1, 249–257 Ljusin, D.V. (2004) Contemporary conceptions of Emotional Intelligence, in Ljusin, D.V. and Ushakov D.V. (Eds.) Social Intelligence: Theory, Measurement, Research. Moscow, Institute of Psychology RAS. Mayer, J.D., Roberts, R.D., and Barsade, S.G..(2008) Human Abilities: Emotional Intelligence. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 59, 507–536. Mayer J.D., and Salovey P. (1997) What is emotional intelligence ?, in P. Salovey, D. Sluyter (Eds.) Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Implications for educators. New York: Basic. Salovey, P., and Mayer J.D. (1990) Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9. 185-211

Author Information

Elena Dmitrieva

Institute of Evolutionary Physiology & Biochemistry Russ Ac Sci

St-Petersburg

Kira Zaitseva

Institute of Evolutionary Physiology & Biochemistry Russ Ac Sci, Russian Federation

Svetlana Lanko

St-Petersburg Medical Academy for Postgraduate Studies

Victor Gelman