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1. Introduction

Research on student achievement has identified numerous factors, including classroom factors (Hanushek, 1995), student characteristics (Kudayja, 2006), management-related factors (Santibanez et al., 2014), school characteristics (Lockheed and Komenan, 1989), family characteristics (Aijaz, 2001), teacher characteristics (Crouch and Mabogoane, 1998) and leadership (Leithwood and Jantzi, 2005; Louis et al., 2010) etc. that are expected to have an influence on student achievement. To add to this growing set of factors, literature has recently focused on emotional intelligence which is also expected to impact student achievement (Parker et al., 2004; Adeoye and Emeke, 2010).

Emotional intelligence refers to “the processes involved in the recognition, use, understanding and management of one’s own and others’ emotional states to solve emotion-laden problems and to regulate behavior” (Salovey et al., 2004, p. i). Proponents of the ability model of emotional intelligence conceptualize emotional intelligence as “[…] the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotions; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth” (Mayer and Salovey, 1997, p. 10). The following five elements are known to be the constituents of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1998):

  • self-awareness;

  • self-regulation;

  • motivation;

  • empathy; and

  • social skills.

Self-awareness relates to the ability of monitoring and understanding personal moods, emotions and drives and their potential impact on others. On the other hand, self-regulation is the ability to control one’s troublesome urges and to think before acting. Internal motivation goes beyond extrinsic reward seeking and deals with the joy and satisfaction in something. Empathy is the ability to understand and share others’ feelings and showing concern in this regard. Social skills are about building and managing relationships and the ability to find common ground.

While teaching students in a classroom setup, not only the academic part is significant, but also there is a need to have emphasis on emotional intelligence. A teacher is expected to have all five components of emotional intelligence to have a successful rapport with his or her students. According to Hargreaves (2000), teachers must make classroom tutoring and supervision decisions with regard to students’ feelings, potentials and their expectations, as this helps in being empathetic toward the...

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