Effects of Teacher Educators’ Emotional Intelligence on their Teaching Practices

Abstract

Teacher educators play a significant role in preparing prospective
teachers. They are not only responsible for teaching student-centered
teaching practices (TPs) to prospective teachers, but also for modeling
those practices in their classrooms. Research suggests that teachers who
are emotionally intelligent tend to employ student-centered TPs in their
classrooms. Using an inferential approach, this study aimed at finding
out the influence of teacher educators’ emotional intelligence (EI) on
their TPs. It was hypothesized that EI has no significant influence on
teacher educators’ TPs. The data was collected by administrating an EI
Questionnaire and TP Questionnaire survey. Using total population
sampling technique, all teacher educators were selected as sample of the
study from the institutions offering B. Ed (Hons.) Elementary Program in
Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The regression analysis showed significant
influence of EI on TPs’ of teacher educators. The paper also discusses
the influencing and non- influencing competencies of EI. The study
recommends professional development for teacher educators to upgrade
and strengthen the knowledge about Emotional Intelligence and the
teaching practices which are more student-centered – thus helping
teacher educators to bridge the gap between theory and practice through
modeling