Teachers’ perceptions of the utilisation of Emotional Intelligence by their school principals to manage mandated curriculum change processes

Abstract

This quantitative study investigates teachers’ perceptions of how Emotional Intelligence (EI) was utilised by their school principals to manage mandated curriculum change processes in schools in the Johannesburg North district of Gauteng in South Africa. Research shows that EI consists of a range of fundamental skills that could enable school principals to facilitate the curriculum changes that are mandated by the Department of Basic Education and implemented by teachers in their classrooms. Researchers argue that principals could simply instruct teachers that the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements, for example, are mandated by top management and that they have to implement them, or they could use EI skills to obtain teachers’ collaboration and commitment to implement the mandated changes. Using a quantitative research method, a structured questionnaire was administered to a sample of 600 Foundation Phase and Grade 10 teachers to probe their perceptions about the extent to which leadership utilised EI to manage mandated curriculum change. The results of this investigation show that there is a strong correlation between the utilisation of EI by school principals and the implementation of the mandated changes.

Emotional intelligence can make a difference: The impact of principals’ emotional intelligence on teaching strategy mediated by instructional leadership

“…Considering the scarcity of empirical evidence detailing the role of using emotions intelligently in school leadership (Berkovich and Eyal 2017;Cai, 2011), particularly the one that relates to instruction, this paper offers empirical evidence that principals' EI predicted their instructional leadership behaviors. This conclusion aligns with findings from previous studies that report a positive relationship between principals' EI and their leadership behaviors (Bipath, 2008;Goldring et al, 2015;Grobler et al, 2017). It further supports the results that subordinates' perceived leadership behaviors strongly relate to their leaders' EI (Kerr et al, 2006), and reinforces the argument that skills of effectively handling emotions contribute to successful leadership (e.g.…”

“…This skill is most useful when an organization faces challenges or opportunities that require mutual trust among its members. Grobler et al (2017) found that school principals could use EI skills to achieve teacher collaboration and commitment, in order to implement the mandated curriculum changes. In addition, its relevance to school leadership is important because principals make decisions that affect the well-being of everyone in their learning communities (Berkovich and Eyal 2017;Cates, 2012).…”

“…One particular aspect of principal leadership, instructional leadership, has been confirmed as the most effective for promoting teaching quality and for student learning outcomes in both empirical and synthesis studies (Adams et al, 2017;Robinson et al, 2008). Moreover, research has shown that emotionally intelligent principals can devise better ways to deliver their instructional leadership behaviors in order to influence their teachers and their teaching instructional strategy (Grobler et al, 2017;Maxwell and Riley, 2017). This study thus aims to provide empirical evidence for this by examining the relationship between principals' EI and teachers' instructional strategy mediated by principal instructional leadership: this was achieved using a questionnaire survey with a cohort of primary school teachers in China.…”

Utilization of Emotional Intelligence in the Management of Cultural Change in the High School in China

“…School culture has become an area of intense study in the educational field in the last few decades and the recent literature acknowledges a powerful role that the school culture plays in the school setting [19][20]. School culture, influencing school leading ideas, educational thoughts, teaching and learning practice, has the ability both to foster and restrain the individual development within the school [15].…”

“…It would be argued that a positive school culture may foster school improvement, teacher development and student achievement; however, a negative school culture may cause hurdles for the development of the school as well [16][17][18][19][20]. Along with the pace of social progress, changes take place all the time, which probably pose challenges to a school's culture [21].…”