The psychometric properties of an emotional intelligence scale for employees in the mining industry

Abstract

Business leaders are increasingly coming to recognise that there is more to business success than technical and cognitive competence. Personnel leadership is proving to be critical for business bottom-line achievements considering that most business outcomes are achieved through human capital. Emotional intelligence can be used to the advantage of organisations by developing an emotional intelligence audit. The objective of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) developed by Schutte, Malouff, Hall, Haggerty, Cooper, and Golden (1998) for employees in the mining industry in South Africa. The psychometric soundness of the EIS was tested. The general objective of the research was to standardise a psychometric instrument of emotional intelligence and determine the validity of the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (EIS) (Schutte, et al., 1998). A valid and reliable measure of emotional intelligence could be valuable in the organisation to identify specific EI needs that could be developed through the implementation of EI development programmes. In this context a standardised psychometric instrument of EI could be of use in organisations during the training and development of employees. A cross-sectional survey research method with an availability sample (N = 324) from employees in the mining industry was used. Exploratory factor analysis was used to confirm the construct equivalence of the EIS in different racial pups. The results supported a one-factor model of emotional intelligence. ANOVA analysis was conducted to determine the levels of emotional intelligence in terms of various demographic aspects such as gender, racial groups, language groups, and age groups. The results indicated that there are no significant differences between different demographics aspects and the level of emotional intelligence. Recommendations for future research were made.