Exploring Indonesian Primary School Teachers’ Emotional Intelligence: Comparisons by Gender and Teaching Experience

This study examined the level of emotional intelligence among private primary school teachers in selected Indonesian schools and differences in teachers’ EI by gender and teaching experience. Using a census survey, the study obtained emotional intelligence data from 107 Indonesian teachers—65 female and 42 male—from 19 private primary schools in Surabaya. The survey was administered using a Google Form containing 25 items on emotional intelligence adapted from Goleman (2011). The emotional intelligence items were divided into five subscales measuring self-awareness (four items), self-regulation (four items), motivation (six items), empathy (five items), and relationship management (six items). The EI data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to establish teachers’ EI levels and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test to determine teacher differences in EI by gender and teaching experience. The results indicated that private primary school teachers in Surabaya reported high levels of EI in all five of its dimensions. Both male and female teachers demonstrated a consistent distribution of emotional intelligence scores and no statistically significant differences by gender and teaching experience were found among the sample in terms of emotional intelligence.


INTRODUCTION
Improving the quality of education is dependent on the condition of the human resources involved in the education process.Teachers are one of the factors that determine the quality of education (Widodo, 2016).Pedagogical competencies, professional attitude, social skills and personality are some indicators of quality teachers.In regard to personality, one of the aspects related to personality maturity and resilience is emotional intelligence (EI).Indeed, emotional management is very important for teachers in the education process, especially in dealing with problems because problem solving involves controlling one's emotions while minimising negative emotions (Vesely et al., 2013).For optimal learning and maximum results, teachers are expected to be able to develop their emotional intelligence as one of the work requirements and ethics of the profession as an educator.
In the learning process, teachers need to control their emotions and anger effectively because the lack of such ability can cause greater conflict and create a debilitating learning or working environment, especially for students.It may escalate to become a barrier to students' cognitive development, consequently becoming an obstacle to achieving educational success.Jorfi and Jorfi (2019) maintained that emotional intelligence plays an important role in organisations and workplaces.The emotional intelligence of leaders and employees influences their performance levels.Moreover, the ability to maintain emotional intelligence has an impact on productivity and achievement at the workplace.Good levels of emotional intelligence impact individual and organisational performance (Henderson, 2013) as members with high EI can manage their emotions well (Pishghadam & Sahebjam, 2012).In the same vein, teachers belong to schools as their organisations and those with high levels of EI will work collaboratively with their colleagues to improve learning and organisational outcomes.Such teachers will act responsibly and perform optimally.In contrast, teachers with low EI will only fulfil their basic obligations, such as merely performing the routines of everyday teaching but avoiding discussions for improving the quality of learning and educational institutions.Teachers, in educational organisations, do not only bring in their "cognition" but also their "emotion" (Day & Gu, 2009) to the workplace.Therefore, educational organisations are no longer considered as settings that are only cognitively directed or academically oriented.There is an emerging recognition of emotions in teachers' lives.Teachers' emotional intelligence has been recognised as a skill that makes them perform better in various aspects of teaching, e.g., classroom management, teacher-student relationships, and decision-making (Bay & McKeage, 2006).
Given its importance in the education process, emotional intelligence is one of the crucial aspects for teachers in transferring knowledge and affecting student behavior (Asrar-ul-Haq et al., 2017).EI reduces stress and assists teachers in dealing with complicated situations that arise during teaching and learning.In creating an effective learning process, teachers not only need to have good communication skills but also good emotional relationships with students.Teachers who have healthy interpersonal relationships are better able to build a favourable learning environment (Tsang & Kwong, 2017).The concept of EI addresses a person's capacity to interact emotionally with others, how to be emotionally aware of themselves and others, and how to control emotions effectively (Chen & Guo, 2020).
IIUM JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES, 12:1 (JAN 2024) Hasanuddin ( 2018), however, claims that many teachers lack the ability to control their emotions and actions, sometimes causing violence to students and in many cases, even resulting in their being suspended or expelled from school, as a consequence.Such cases show that teachers' emotional intelligence has an impact on themselves, their students, and the school.Teachers, therefore, need to possess adequate EI to further build and improve their professionalism, teaching career and quality of the educational institution for the betterment of students' learning experience.
The above lends credence to the fact that emotional intelligence is critical to the teaching profession.We now ask, what is the level of emotional intelligence among teachers, specifically those teaching in private primary schools in Indonesia, where student learning is expected to be qualitatively better?We believe that the lack of emotional intelligence in teachers will have an impact on students and their commitment towards improving the quality of teaching and education.According to Mulyasa (2013), professional teachers are those exhibiting high levels of competence and commitment.One of the ways to achieve this is through emotional intelligence.The aim of conducting this research, therefore, is to provide empirical information on primary school teachers' EI and establish the importance of increasing their EI ability in primary schools for the future improvement of education in Surabaya City.
Based on a research-gap analysis of 200 articles in Google Scholar spanning the years 2014 to 2024 using the keyword "teacher emotional intelligence," it was discovered that articles specifically addressing the emotional intelligence of primary teachers were mostly published in 2022, as indicated by the section highlighted in light green in Figure 1 below.Notably, the predominant focus of research on emotional intelligence in this context appears to be connected to teacher efficacy and burnout.It is noteworthy that only a limited amount of research was conducted on the connection of EI to gender and teaching experience in the given articles.

Research Gap Analysis Using VOSviewer
Based on the findings of this gap analysis, the study deemed it important to investigate the emotional intelligence of primary school teachers by gender and teaching experience.

Theoretical Framework
The concept of emotional intelligence (EI) was made popular by Goleman (2011) who conceptualised it as a person's ability to use intelligence to control, manage and regulate their emotions.This ability includes self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills.A decade earlier than Goleman (2011), Bar-On (2000) described EI as a wide range of abilities and skills-emotional and social-that influence a person's total capability to deal effectively with stressful situations.For this reason, emotional intelligence is focused on a person's efforts to recognise, understand and realise existing emotions in the right context; and to process, control and use these emotions to solve problems that arise in daily life.A person with a high level of emotional intelligence will be able to combine EI and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) to not only play a social role, but also to increase their potential to achieve success.Goleman (2011) defined emotional intelligence as having five dimensions.The first dimension is self-awareness, which involves having a thorough understanding of one's emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and motivation.In relation to teachers, self-awareness relates to teachers' recognition of their own values and objectives.For example, a teacher will prioritise completing his or her work to achieve long-term objectives.The second dimension is self-regulation.This refers to the ability to regulate or redirect disruptive impulses and moods.A further concept of self-regulation is defined as the tendency to put off judgment in order to think it over before acting.This dimension's indicators include trustworthiness and integrity, comfort with ambiguity, and openness to change.
The third dimension of EI is motivation, which is defined as having an internal drive or desire to work for incentives other than money or status, coupled with a willingness to pursue goals with enthusiasm and persistence.The next dimension for measuring EI is empathy, defined as the ability to understand the feelings of others, or the ability to treat individuals based on their emotional reactions.The final dimension is relationship management.This relates to proficiency in managing connections and networking, and includes the capacity to establish common ground and build rapport.This skill helps individuals to achieve interpersonal success, popularity, and leadership.Goleman's (2011) EI dimensions are represented visually in Figure 1.

Motivation Emotional Intelligence
Self-Awareness

Level of EI among Primary School Teachers
Results from studies delving into teachers' emotional intelligence have been mixed-with some indicating a high level of EI among teachers at a mean score of 4.08 (Yoke & Panatik, 2015) and others indicating a moderate degree of EI at a mean score of 3.28.Charankumar (2015), for instance, found that more than 60% of his sample of primary school teachers reported a moderate level of EI, while 20% believed they were high on emotional intelligence.Similarly, an Omani study involving a large sample of 4,098 primary school teachers of mathematics and science found teachers' EI to be high on all five dimensions (Al-Busaidi et al., 2019) (refer to Figure 1).Research conducted in India indicates that Indian teachers' emotional intelligence is above average (Edannur, 2010).Another research on primary teachers' emotional intelligence reports that EI contributes to teacher creativity, with most of the teachers in Nigeria having EI at a medium level (Helen et al., 2011).In Ponmozhi and Ezhilbharathy (2017), 97% of the sample of teachers rated themselves very high on the given EI scale.These results are conflicting and require further research.

Gender Differences in EI among Primary School Teachers
A study conducted by Hasanuddin (2018) shows that there is a significant difference between the emotional intelligence of male and female teachers, with the latter reporting a higher level of EI than the former.Meanwhile, Rachman (2015) finds significant differences in classroom management skills between teachers who have a high EI and teachers who are low on the construct.In contrast, an EI study in India detected no significant difference in the emotional intelligence of primary school teachers in regard to gender (Varma & Chaudhary, 2021).The same pattern was documented by Monica et al. (2021) who observed no significant gender difference in teachers' EI.Similarly, Meshkat and Nejati (2017) discovered no difference in the EI of female and male teachers in Iran.Other studies also show the same results (Dhillon et al., 2018), claiming no apparent gender disparity in teachers' overall EI results.Again, the results on gender differences in teachers' EI are incongruent and need to be addressed in a further study.
In an Omani study, Al-Busaidi et al. ( 2019) revealed a noticeable difference in EI between male and female teachers where male teachers generally demonstrated higher levels of EI than their female colleagues.This implies the presence of gender-based distinctions in emotional intelligence within the teaching profession in Oman.Another study conducted in India (Ponmozhi & Ezhilbharathy, 2017) highlights a significant disparity in EI scores between male and female teachers, with male teachers scoring higher on the scale.This statistically significant difference underscores the presence of gender-based variations in the emotional intelligence of teachers within the Indian context.Contrary to previous findings, some research (e.g., Charankumar, 2015) suggests that there is no significant difference in emotional intelligence between male and female secondary school teachers.This indicates that gender does not play a substantial role in determining emotional intelligence levels among educators in this context.Hence, the results overall do not show a consistent pattern that favours one gender over the other, thereby requiring a further effort to clarify the matter.Salleh (2015) investigated the connection between emotional intelligence and teaching experience and discovered no significant changes in the levels of EI dimensions across three teaching experience categories (i.e., novice teachers with 5 years of teaching experience or less; moderately experienced teachers with five to 15 years of teaching experience; and veteran teachers with more than 15 years).This indicates that regardless of the extent of teaching experience, teachers tend to exhibit similar levels of EI.Based on their results, Galanakis et al. (2021) remarked that teachers' EI is not affected by gender or teaching experience.

Differences in EI by Teaching Experience
However, it has been observed that teachers who have been in the profession for a longer duration tend to demonstrate higher levels of EI, although the differences may not account for any significant difference among teacher categories (Dewaele et al., 2018).This suggests a positive correlation between years of teaching experience and emotional intelligence, indicating that with increased tenure in the profession, educators may develop and exhibit greater emotional intelligence competencies.Suprapti (2010) found a substantial relationship to exist between teacher experience and EI, with evidence indicating that as teachers gain more years in the profession, their EI tends to strengthen significantly.
Similarly, Kauts and Chechi (2014) indicated that the association between EI and teaching experience is a strong one, where experienced teachers exhibited a greater EI ability than their less experienced counterparts.This observation suggests that with the increased number of years in the profession, teachers develop better skills in understanding and regulating their own emotions, as well as in effectively navigating interpersonal interactions.Other research findings indicate that there is no statistically significant difference in teachers' EI based on teaching experience, suggesting that the level of teaching experience does not have a notable impact on the emotional intelligence levels of educators (Penrose et al., 2007).Again, like the link between EI and gender, the empirical evidence regarding the link between EI and teaching experience has not been conclusive.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES
The study's research objectives were threefold: 1) To describe the level of EI among primary school teachers in Surabaya; 2) to compare the levels of male and female primary school teachers' emotional intelligence to see if significant differences exist; and finally, 3) to compare novice (less than 5 years of teaching experience) and experienced teachers (those with more than 5 years) in their emotional intelligence levels.
In relation to this, the review of previous research results led to the following hypotheses to be formulated and tested in the present study: H1: Teachers' emotional intelligence will differ significantly by gender.H2: Teachers' emotional intelligence will differ significantly by teaching experience.

METHODOLOGY Research Design
This research was a census survey where the entire population of private primary school teachers in the city of Surabaya, Indonesia was studied.The questionnaire was sent to all teachers in the population and some 107 teachers returned their responses, putting the study's response rate at 65.2%.

Population and Sample
The population was made up of 164 teachers teaching at 19 private primary schools in Surabaya City.
The sample comprised 107 teachers who represented 65.2% of the population pool.The sample distribution across the 19 primary schools is shown in Table 1:

Sample Profile
The study involved a sample of 107 primary school teachers from 19 private primary schools in Surabaya.Their characteristics are detailed in Table 3: The sample was largely female (63%) with an almost equal distribution of novice (49%) and experienced teachers (51%).Most were young individuals aged 40 or below (76%).Teachers between the ages of 41 to 50 made up 14% or the sample, while 7% of them were between 51 and 60.This distribution highlights a significant presence of young teachers in the surveyed population and a comparatively lower level of participation from individuals in the upper age range.A large majority of the respondents, accounting for 93% of the total sample, hold a bachelor's degree, while a smaller proportion have a master's degree (5%), indicating a lesser prevalence of postgraduate qualifications among the sample.The remaining 2% have qualifications other than a bachelor's or a master's degree.

Level of EI among Private Primary School Teachers in Surabaya
Table 4 shows the descriptive results indicating the level of emotional intelligence among the respondents.The mean score and standard deviation for every dimension are reported in the table, along with the interpretation of each level.The respondents reported high levels of EI in all dimensions, the highest being relationship management (M = 4.33, SD = .49)and the lowest being motivation (M = 4.15, SD = .41).The standard deviations across these dimensions suggest relatively homogenous responses.Overall, the total emotional intelligence score averages at M = 4.26 (SD = .47),reflecting a consistently high level of emotional intelligence among the teachers surveyed

Difference in Teachers' EI Levels by Gender
Table 5 breaks down teachers' EI level by gender.The descriptive statistics for emotional intelligence scores, as shown in Table 3, reveal interesting insights when broken down by gender.For the male teachers' group, consisting of 40 respondents, the average emotional intelligence score is 92.35, with a relatively small variation (SD = 1.23) around this mean.The scores range from a low of 80.00 to a high of 107.00.Similarly, the female teachers' group, comprising 67 respondents, has an average emotional intelligence score of 91.88, with a slightly lower standard deviation (SD = 0.86).The scores for the female teachers also range from 80.00 to 107.00.Overall, both male and female teachers demonstrate a consistent and narrow distribution of emotional intelligence scores, with the male teachers having a slightly higher average score compared to the female group of teachers.
The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare emotional intelligence scores across gender.The results of the test typically include a p-value that indicates whether the observed differences are statistically significant.The outcomes of the test are presented in Table 6.The outcomes of the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, applied to assess potential disparities in emotional intelligence scores between male and female respondents, indicate a Z-statistic of -0.762 and an associated two-tailed p-value of 0.446.The results suggest the absence of a statistically significant difference in emotional intelligence scores based on gender.The non-significant p-value, exceeding the conventional significance level of 0.05, implies that gender is not a contributing factor to substantial distinctions in emotional intelligence scores.Although male teachers reported slightly higher EI scores than female teachers, their difference was not statistically significant.

Difference in EI by Teaching Experience
Table 7 presents the descriptive statistics comparing novice and experienced teachers based on their emotional intelligence scores.The same Wilcoxon signed-rank test was applied on the EI data to detect differences in the scores by teaching experience.The results are shown in Table 8.The Z-statistic of -1.271 and the p-value of 0.204 obtained from the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test indicate no statistically significant difference in emotional intelligence scores between experienced and novice teachers.With a p-value greater than the commonly used significance level of 0.05, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.Thus, based on the data, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that teaching experience is not associated with significant differences in emotional intelligence scores between the two groups.The negative sign of the Z-statistic, based on negative ranks, implies a potential prevalence of more negative ranks among experienced teachers, but this observation does not reach statistical significance.

DISCUSSION
The research outcomes revealed nearly identical EI mean scores for both male and female private primary school teachers in Surabaya.This suggests that teachers, irrespective of gender, demonstrate effective management of their emotional intelligence.Moreover, from the data above there is no difference between male and female teachers from the emotional intelligence aspect.This result corroborates the outcomes of previous studies (e.g., Varma & Chaudhary, 2021;Monica et al., 2021;Dhillon et al., 2018) that established the no-significant difference in male and female teachers' levels of emotional intelligence.The results of this study also support the findings of Meshkat and Nejati (2017) involving Iranian teachers and confirmed Galanaki et al.'s (2021) observation of no gender difference, while disagreeing with those of Hasanuddin (2018) and Rachman (2015).Based on this discovery, H1 which hypothesised the existence of a significant gender difference in teachers' EI is rejected.
According to Shehzad and Mahmood (2012) and Bar-On (2010), one of the positive factors from the psychological aspect that affects a person's performance is emotional intelligence.In the context of education, teachers' emotional intelligence has a correlation with the choosing of appropriate learning strategies to managing classroom conflict management.Teachers must have extensive knowledge of teaching skills and strategies as well as emotional intelligence that can create a positive work atmosphere (Dey & Roy, 2021).Teachers' emotional intelligence has a fundamental role in establishing relationships between teachers and students (Barłożek, 2013).This contention is in line with Wang (2022) who stressed that teachers' emotional intelligence can significantly affect students' academic success.The results of this study suggest that both male and female teachers are equally adept at managing emotions and adapting to the learning environment at school.This is likely due to the fact the Indonesian teachers surveyed in this study were equally educated.Regardless of gender, almost all the teachers had acquired at least a bachelor's degree in relevant fields.The results addressing the second hypothesis also revealed no noticeable gap in the emotional intelligence of teachers relative to their teaching experience.This implies that the diversity in the teachers' teaching experience did not have a significant impact on their overall emotional intelligence levels-although experienced teachers did report a slightly higher level of EI than novice teachers.The finding supports the observations of previous works on the same matter (i.e., Salleh, 2015;Penrose et al., 2007;Dewaele et al., 2018).Therefore, the study concludes that H2, which postulated to find a significance difference in teachers' EI by teaching experience, is not supported by the data and is, thereby, rejected.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The conclusions drawn from this are: (1) Private primary school teachers in Surabaya city have reportedly high levels of EI across its five dimensions; and (2) in regard to gender and teaching experience, the teachers do not exhibit significant discernible differences in their emotional intelligence, although male and experienced teachers reported slightly higher levels of EI than their respective counterparts.Teachers play a vital role in instilling values in students through positive support.To play this role well, they need to be in a healthy emotional and psychological state.In addition to having in-depth knowledge of their subjects, teachers must possess the ability to apply emotional intelligence skills and techniques to create a positive educational atmosphere for primary school students prosper in.The application of emotional intelligence in the learning process is, therefore, crucial.Regardless of gender and teaching experience, teachers must be encouraged to continue improving their emotional intelligence capability through in-house professional development trainings that should be organised by the schools and other educational authorities in Surabaya.Future research should examine the types of content and strategies that can be used in the said trainings to help teachers empower themselves through emotional intelligence.

Table 6
Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test Results by Gender *a= male < female, b. male > female, c. male = female

Table 7
Teachers' EI Level by Teaching Experience (N = 107)The table includes the number of respondents, minimum and maximum scores observed, mean scores and standard deviations for the EI data for each group.Novice teachers, consisting of 52 individuals, exhibit scores ranging from 4.00 to 5.00, with a mean score of 4.19 and a standard deviation of .39,indicating a high level of emotional intelligence.Quite similarly, experienced teachers, comprising 55 individuals, demonstrate scores also ranging from 4.00 to 5.00, with a slightly higher mean score of 4.25 and a standard deviation of .44,suggesting a high level of emotional intelligence.These results suggest that both novice and experienced teachers perceived having relatively high levels of emotional intelligence, with experienced teachers showing a slightly higher mean score (M = 4.25, SD = .44)compared to their novice counterparts (M = 4.19, SD = .39).The small SDs of both groups indicate fairly homogenous responses of the teachers within each category of experience.

Table 8
Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test Results by Teaching Experience