Isabel María Mikulic
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Vladimir Takšić
University of Rijeka, Croatia
Emotional intelligence (EI) is commonly defined as the set of abilities to process emotion-laden information competently. The main problem within the EI construct is about how to measure it. The two most common approaches in the assessment are as a trait and ability measure. Even the authors and majority of scientific researchers prefer ability measures, the advantages and disadvantages of both measures will be discussed.
Today it is possible to find out lots of trait measures of EI (self-rating scales), but not all of them could be treated as reliable and valid measures of EI. The first problem that researchers faced in constructing procedure is a theoretical framework. Many self-reported scales and questionnaires include very wide-ranged human characteristics that overlaps with well-known personality traits. From the other side, the basic problem with ability EI assessment is how to find an accurate answer. Using Mayer-Salovey four-branches hierarchical model of EI abilities researchers could prevent the first problem about the theory. Search for an accurate answer in ability tests will be discussed in a comparison of several common approaches in the instruments we have constructed, and with real data. The necessary psychometric properties, especially stressing incremental validity as an important question for every construct, are collected and will be discussed.
In our “global village” growing interest is in applying EI instruments in different cultural settings. So, adaptation of EI instruments will also invite us to understand the importance of bias and equivalence as they are closely related. It will be necessary to understand that linguistic and psychological criteria for good translations do not always converge. Last two decades an increased interest in procedures for the assessment of invariance emerged, resulting in the development and modernization of procedures. Measurement invariance is related to the degree to which items and constructs have an equivalent meaning for individuals of different cultural backgrounds. The result from these studies will be presented with an additional examination of methodological issues specific for validation of different statistical procedures for accurate assessment of invariance in cross-cultural.
Key words: trait vs ability EI assessment, accurate answer, psychometric properties, incremental validity, cross-validation