Emotional intelligence in the field of education: a meta-analysis

Abstract: Emotional Intelligence is a key factor that affects the social and mental wellbeing of students, making it easier for them to understand their environment and make the right decisions in the face of the various conflict situations that arise daily. Therefore, this construct should be constantly developed by educational institutions. For this reason, a meta-analysis has been developed in order to verify the degree of reliability, as well as the benefits that Emotional Intelligence implementation programs bring about to students. The bibliographic search was carried out in the Web of Science, SCOPUS and PubMed databases, making a total of 20 articles published related to the analyzed subject. Only longitudinal articles were included, obtaining an average Effect Size (E.S) of 0.73. When analyzing the effectiveness in the different educational stages, it should be noted that Primary Education yielded the best results (E. S= 0.95), followed by Secundary Education. Regarding duration, medium length programs reported the best results. In addition, better results were achieved in the programs using personality traits as assessment tools. In conclusion, most of the programs contribute to the development and improvement of the students’ Emotional Intelligence, providing them with the necessary skills to face real-life situations, as well as with the ability to feel self-fulfilled in relation to the tasks carried out by them and to the devoted effort.