Abstract:
Emotional intelligence, an important construct that has been extensively used globally, is
a critical factor in adolescent growth. However, extant literature have shown that locallybased Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) for measuring adolescents’ emotional
intelligence in Nigeria is scarce, while several foreign scales on the construct are not
culturally appropriate. Previous studies used foreign-made EIS for measure of adolescents
emotional intelligence among Nigeria students neglecting locally made EIS. This study,
therefore, was designed to develop an indigenous model of emotional intelligence scale
among adolescents in southwestern Nigeria.
The Goleman Daniel’s Emotional Intelligence and Julius Akinboye’s Creativity theories
provided the framework, while a multitrait-multimethod research design was adopted. The
multi-stage procedure was employed. The six states in southwestern Nigeria were
enumerated. The simple random sampling technique was used to select 12 Local
Government Areas (two per state) and 24 schools (two per LGA). One thousand four
hundred and forty adolescents (60 per school) were randomly selected. The instruments
used were self-developed Indigenous Emotional Intelligence scale (α =.90), Schutte Selfreport EIS (α =.90) and Emotional Instability Scale (α =.77). Data were analysed using
descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation, Exploratory and Confirmatory
factor analyses at 0.05 level of significance.
The participants’ age was 14.2±1.41, and 54.5% were female. Out of 80 items of the
emotional intelligence scale, 66 items had correlation value above r>0.3. Only seven
potential factors were produced from the original 66-item scale. The seven potential factors
accounted for 13.3%, 8.8%, 8.8%, 8.4%, 8.5%, 5.9% and 3.6% variances, respectively. All
these factors produced 57.2% joint effect on emotional intelligent measure. The proportion
of the variance in the measures of emotional intelligence was explained by the underling
factors of the scale. After pruning down the scale, it resulted into six dimensions with an
internal convergence validity of managing personal emotion (r =0.79), self-regulation (r =
0.73), managing other emotion (r = 0. 49), emotional creativity (r =0.78), emotional
innovation (r = 0.56) and self-actualisation (r = 0.65). The developed indigenous EIS also
had an external convergence validity (r = 0.39) with Schutte Emotional Intelligence scale.
Emotional intelligence test showed a negative discriminant validity with Emotional
Instability (r =-.38). However, the six factors model displayed a better fit index; (χ² = 15.58)
and the indigenous emotional intelligence scale showed a composite reliability value of
0.90, with each dimension of the scale recording a good reliability coefficient.
The developed indigenous emotional intelligence scale produced a reliable and valid
measure for diagnosis and research purposes among adolescents in Southwestern Nigeria.
Counselling psychologists and researchers in test and measurement should adopt this test
for counselling and research purposes.
