MALAY VERSION OF THE EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE INVENTORY (ECI): A STUDY OF RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY CHUA BEE SEOK, Ph.

D chuabs@ums.edu.my BEDDU SALAM BACO, MA beddu@ums.edu.my Sekolah Psikologi & Kerja Sosial Universiti Malaysia Sabah Tel: 088-320000 ext 1525/1549 HARRIS SHAH ABDUL HAMID, MSc. harris@iiu.edu.my Department of Psycholgoy International Islamic University Malaysia Tel: 03 2056 4000 ext 3058

ABSTRACT This study investigates the reliability and validity of the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) in its Malay version. Estimates of reliability were obtained by using method of internal consistency Cronbachs alpha and construct validity was used to test the validity of ECI. The Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) was translated into Malay and administered to a sample of 223 nurses in Sandakan, Sabah. The results show that Cronbach alpha internal consistency for the four ECI clusters range from .692 to .873 and Cronbach alpha for the 20 ECI competencies range from .412 to 684. Acceptable convergent validity was also found for the four ECI clusters.

INTRODUCTION Over the past century, general cognitive ability (g) has played an important role in illuminating our understanding of human performance. Gottfredson (1997) and Schmidt and Hunter (1998) have examined the relationship between general cognitive ability and academic and occupational performance and showing that it to be the best single predictor of performance. Recently, many people have come to believe that our notion of intelligence should be expanded to include emotional intelligence (EI), which has generally been defined as the ability to perceive, understand, and manage ones emotions (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Boyatsis, Goleman & Hay/McBer, 1999). Media reported by Wigod (1998) have heralded the potential value of emotion intelligence for improving ones professional and personal life. Many of these reports go as far as to suggest that EI will be a more effective predictor of academic success and life achievement than general intelligence.

Emotional intelligence has also become a hot topic in the psychological literature, starting with the publication of article that proposed both a model of EI and an initial attempt to measure the construct. Since then, numerous measures of EI have been developed (see Table 1). Table 1 Instruments used to measure emotional intelligence Instruments Emotional Quotient Inventory - EQ-i (Bar-On 1997) Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998) Emotional Competence Inventory - ECI (Boyatzis, Goleman & Hay/McBer, 1999) Multifactoral Emotional Intelligence Scale - MEIS (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000) Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (Nikolaou & Tsaousis, 2002) Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile WEIP (Jordan, Ashkanasy, Hrtel, & Hooper, 2002) Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire - TEIQue (Petrides & Furnham, 2003)

The present paper seeks to establish whether EI can also be reliably and validly measured in local sample. This study investigates the reliability and validity of the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) in its Malay version.

METHODS Subjects and Location The sample in the study was drawn from a population of staff and trainee nurses in a public hospital in Sandakan, Sabah. Table 2 presents the demographic information of the sample. The questionnaire was self-administered by the staff nurses. The questionnaire packs were collected and returned within a week. For the trainees, the questionnaire was administered in three groups in the presence of the researches. The trainees took less than one hour to complete the questionnaires.

Table 2 Demographic Profile of Subject (N = 223) Variables Job Status Frequency 145 78 140 83 62 160 1 134 6 82 1 Percentage 65.0 35.0 62.8 37.2 27.8 71.7 0.4 60.1 2.7 36.8 0.4

Trainee Staff nurses 19 24 year 25 year and above Married Single Missing value Islam Buddha Christian Missing value

Age

Marital Status

Religion

Instrument The Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) is a tool designed to assess the emotional competencies of individual and organizations. It is based on emotional competencies identified by Danniel Goleman in Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998), and on competencies from Hay/McBers Generic Competency Dictionary (1996) as well as Richard Boyatziss Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). The Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) measures 20 competencies organized into four clusters: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Social Skill. All competencies are measured using three items. Self-Awareness concerns knowing ones internal states, preference, resources, and intuitions. The self-awareness cluster contains three competencies (containing 9 items): a) Emotional Self-Awareness: Recognizing ones emotions and their effects. b) Accurate Self-Awareness: Knowing ones strengths and limits. c) Self-Confidence: A strong sense of ones self-worth and capabilities. Self-Management refers to managing ones internal states, impulses, and resources. The Self-Management cluster contains six competencies (containing 18 items): a) Self-Control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check. b) Trustworthiness: Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.

c) Conscientiousness: Taking responsibility for personal performance. d) Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change. e) Achievement Orientation: Striving to improve or meeting a standard of excellence. f) Initiative: Readiness to act on opportunities. Social Awareness refers to how people handle relationships and awareness of others feelings, needs, and concerns. The Social Awareness cluster contains three competencies (containing 9 items): a) Empathy: Sensing others feelings and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns. b) Organizational Awareness: Reading a groups emotional currents and power relationships. c) Service Orientation: Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting customers needs. Social Skills concerns the skill or adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others. The Social Skills cluster contains eight competencies (containing 27 items): a) Developing Others: Sensing others development needs and bolstering their abilities. b) Leadership: Inspiring and guiding individuals and groups. c) Influence: Wielding effective tactics for persuasion. d) Communication: Listening openly and sending convincing messages. e) Change Catalyst: Initiating or managing change. f) Conflict Management: Negotiating and resolving disagreements. g) Building Bonds: Nurturing instrumental relationships. h) Teamwork and Collaboration: Working with other toward shared goals.. i) Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals. The ECI was translated into Malay the authors using back translation procedure proposed by Brislin (1973). Data Analysis The data of this study was analysed by using SPSS for Windows program. Estimates of reliability were obtained by using method of internal consistency Cronbachs alpha. Construct validity was used to test the validity of ECI where ECI was correlated with measures of stress and mental ill-health. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Reliability: Internal Consistency Cronbachs alpha Reliability coefficients using Cronbachs alpha are presented in Table 2. High reliabilities were found for all clusters of ECI. The alpha coefficients range from .692 (Self-

Awareness) to .873 (Social Skills) with an overall average internal consistency coefficient of .784. Moderate reliability was found for competencies of ECI. The alpha coefficients range from .412 (Initiative) to .684 (Self-Control) with an overall average internal consistency coefficient of .515. The alpha coefficient obtained for the clusters were higher than for the competencies, which means that the cluster (total scale) are more reliable measure than their competencies (subscales). Moderate reliability obtained for the competencies of ECI might be influenced by the small number of items (three items) for each competency. According to Murphy and Davidshofer (2005), if every item on the test measures essentially the same thing as all other items and if the number of items is large, internal consistency methods suggest that the test will be reliable. Table 3 Cronbachs Alpha Coefficients for The Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) Clusters and Competencies ECI Cluster Self-Awareness ECI Competency Emotional Self-Awareness Accurate Self-Assessment Self-Confidence Self-Control Trustworthiness Conscientiousness Adaptability Achievement Orientation Initiative Empathy Organizational Awareness Service Orientation Developing Others Leadership Influence Communication Change Catalyst Conflict Management Building Bonds Teamwork & Collaboration
Alpha Coefficient ECI Cluster Alpha Coefficient Competency

.667 .419 .600 .684 .424 .597 .509 .481 .412 .558 .568 .488 .565 .533 .523 .417 .414 .443 .477 .525

.692

Self-Management

.823

Social Awareness

.748

Social Skills

.873

Validity: Construct Validity Construct validity of the ECI was estimated by two methods: (1) convergent validity - to correlate scores on the ECI in item with other measure (job stress and mental ill-health) that ought to be conceptually related. For example, the ECI ought to correlate negatively with job stress and mental ill-health, (2) examination of ECI subscale (competencies) intercorrelation correlations between scores that reflect the same trait, these validity coefficient supposed to be significant. The choice of stress and mental ill-health measures to establish construct validity is supported by other related works. For example, Schutte, Malouf, Hall, Haggerty et al. (1998) tested the validity of their emotional intelligence scale with theoretically related construct that includes depression, mood repair, and optimism. Ciarrochi, Chan, and Caputi (2000) reported that EI was related to peoples ability to manage their mood. Meanwhile, Saklofske, Austin and Minski (2003) found EI to be positively correlated with life satisfaction and negatively correlated with depression-proneness. Job stress was measured by using Job Stress Survey (JSS), developed by Spielberger and Vagg (1999) and translated into Malay by Chua Bee Seok, Beddu Salam Baco and Harris Shah Abdul Hamid (2002). The JSS is composed of 30 items, assessing the perceived severity (intensity) and frequency of occurrence of 30 general sources of work related stress that are commonly experienced by both men and women employed in a wide variety of business, industrial and educational settings. The JSS consists of three scales and six subscales. However, in this study only Job Stress Index scale was used. The Job Stress Index scale provides an estimate of the overall level of occupational stress experienced by a respondent in his/her work setting. It combines severity and frequency ratings of all 30 JSS items. One of the scales of Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) developed by Cooper, Sloan and Williams (1988) was adopted to investigate mental ill health. The mental ill health scale is composed of 18 items. The scale measure overall mental ill health and tap a range of different aspects of mental health. The role of these questions is to give the user an insight into general mental health not an in-depth clinical diagnosis. The correlation between ECI (clusters and competencies) and job stress and mental illhealth measures that ought to be conceptually related are presented in Table 4. The correlation between the ECI (clusters and competencies) and Job Stress Index and the correlation between the ECI (clusters and competencies) and mental ill health provide some evidence for the convergent validity of the measures. All of the clusters for the ECI are significantly related to the job stress index and mental ill health, except Social Awareness scale which is not significantly related to the Job Stress Index. However, the direction of the relationship between the ECI cluster and Job Stress Index was not as expected. The results showed that the ECI clusters correlated positively with job stress. These findings did not support the evidence which suggest that some forms of emotional intelligence may protect people form stress and lead to better

adaptation. For example, an objective measure of emotion management skill has been associated with a tendency to maintain an experimentally induced positive mood (Ciarrochi, Chan & Caputi, 2000). EI was also found to be negatively correlated with stress at work (Nikolaou & Tsaousis, 2002). However, according to Ciarrochi, Deans and Anderson (2002), people who are poor at perceiving their emotions might actually be less sensitive to the effects of stress. For example, Simpson, Ickes and Blackstone (1995) showed that dating couples can be motivated to inaccurately perceive each other thoughts and feelings, and that such inaccuracy may protect the couple from relationship stress. Table 4 The Correlation Between ECI Clusters and Job Stress and Mental Ill-Health Measures ECI Cluster Self-Awareness ECI Competency Emotional Self-Awareness Accurate Self-Assessment Self-Confidence Self-Management Self-Control Trustworthiness Conscientiousness Adaptability Achievement Orientation Initiative Social Awareness Empathy Organizational Awareness Service Orientation Social Skills Developing Others Leadership Influence Communication Change Catalyst Conflict Management Building Bonds Teamwork & Collaboration *p < .05 **p < .01 Job Stress Index .153* .113 .096 .113 .183** .011 .148* .072 .177* .056 .281** .122 .037 .169* .070 .159* .114 .076 .203** .138 .098 .166* .132 .012 Mental ill health -.158* -.062 -.035 -.242** -.229** -.324** -.131 -.315** -.151* -.212** .206** -.182** -.099 -.134 -.199** -.182* -.247** -.249 -.103 -.041 -.087 -.131 .054 -.147

Table 5 The Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) Subscale (Competencies) Intercorrelations

No. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 The ECI Competencies Emotional Self-Awareness Accurate Self-Assessment Self-Confidence Self-Control Trustworthiness Conscientiousness Adaptability Achievement Orientation Initiative Empathy Organizational Awareness Service Orientation Developing Others Leadership Influence Communication Change Catalyst Conflict Management Building Bonds Teamwork & Collaboration 1 2 .431** 3 .233** .294** .440** .314** 4 5 6 7 8

.241** -

.306** .676** .355** -

.307** .370** .416** .432** -

.093 .365** -.009 .379** .196** -

.418** -

.523** .439** .632** .544** .464** .460** .565** .319** .327** .399** .352** .547** .390** .502** .443** .477** .388** .383** .452** .415** .238** .355** .528** .454** .468** .388** .311** .428** .380** -

.548** -

*p < .05

**p < .01

The results showed that the ECI clusters correlate negatively with mental ill health. These studies suggest that high emotional intelligence subjects tend to have better mental health and low emotional intelligence subjects tend to have mental health problems. These findings support the research which has shown that the tendency to not think about thoughts and feelings, or low psychological mindedness, is associated with lower anxiety, depression, and paranoia, and with higher self-esteem (Farber, 1989; McCallum & Piper, 2001). These studies suggest that avoiding or repressing feelings may sometimes be good for mental health, at least in the short run. The findings in Table 4 showed that six out of twenty competencies (trustworthiness, adaptability, initiative, organizational awareness, influence and conflict management) in ECI correlated significantly and positively with Job Stress Index and 10 of the ECI competencies (self-confidence, self-control, conscientiousness, adaptability, achievement, initiative, service orientation, developing others, leadership, and teamwork) were correlated significantly and negatively with mental ill health. Table 5 showed the results of an examination of ECI subscales (competencies) intercorrelations. Examination of the intercorrelations overall reveals that the ECI subscales (or competencies) have good construct validity. All ECI cluster consisting of subscale (or competencies) are highly and significantly related and the direction of the

relationship (correlate positively) is as expected. One exception is for self-management cluster where the subscales of self-control and conscientiousness are not significantly related to initiative. CONCLUSION This study has demonstrated a high reliability for all of the clusters of ECI and moderate reliability for the ECI competencies. This study also has demonstrated a good convergent validity for all of the clusters of ECI and fairly good convergent validity for the ECI competencies. ECI scores were associated with job stress and mental ill health that ought to be conceptually related. The results also showed that the ECI competencies are highly and significantly intercorrelated. The ECI is not without limitation some of the ECI competencies were not associated significantly with job stress and mental ill health measures. To address these concerns, further studies should be conducted to revise the ECI competencies.

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