Emotions in the Classroom: How to Measure Teachers' Emotional Competence?

A research team wanted to move past the classic debate on emotional intelligence, asking whether emotions could be seen as a real competence rather than just a personality trait. They tested the “emocreativity” model, which groups emotional abilities into four areas: emotional awareness, emotional change, emotional bonding, and emotional creativity. To do this, they involved 177 teachers and 370 students in teacher‑training programs, who completed two online questionnaires: the CACE (Self‑Assessment Questionnaire of Emotional Competencies) and the TMMS‑24, a well‑known emotional intelligence tool. The results show that the CACE is robust: exploratory factor analysis revealed four consistent factors, confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis, and all factors displayed good internal consistency. Moreover, CACE scores correlated well with TMMS‑24 scores, confirming convergent validity. In practice, the new questionnaire can help schools assess teachers’ emotional competencies more accurately, providing useful data for targeted training programs. Thus, beyond simply knowing their emotions, teachers can learn to turn them into creative resources for the classroom.

The CACE underwent a rigorous psychometric validation process. Initially, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) identified four main factors, matching the theoretical dimensions of the emocreativity model: emotional awareness, emotional change, emotional bonding, and emotional creativity. The analysis used the maximum likelihood extraction method with oblique rotation, allowing factors to correlate as expected in an integrated competence structure. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tested model stability on an independent sample, achieving excellent fit indices (CFI = 0.96; TLI = 0.95; RMSEA = 0.04). Internal consistency was assessed via Cronbach's alpha, exceeding the 0.80 threshold for all factors, indicating high reliability. For convergent validity, CACE scores were correlated with TMMS‑24 scores, yielding correlation coefficients between 0.62 and 0.71, confirming that the two instruments measure related but distinct constructs. Practically, the CACE can be used in both research and professional development contexts, providing a detailed map of teachers' emotional competencies. This mapping enables the design of personalized training interventions targeting specific areas, such as regulating emotions under stress or fostering positive emotional bonds with students. Moreover, the four‑factor structure paves the way for longitudinal studies investigating how emotional competencies evolve over time and affect educational outcomes, like student motivation and classroom climate. In summary, the CACE validation marks a significant step toward a more nuanced and operational assessment of emotional intelligence in schools.