Reliability and convergent validity of the Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay Scale, revised

The purpose of this study was to reassess the reliability and convergent validity of the revised Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay Scale, and determine whether the scale could identify students demonstrating professional behavior problems in the classroom and fieldwork environments. Thirty-six student participants completed the revised Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay Scale and Schutte Assessing Emotions Scale. Interrater reliability, internal consistency, and convergent validity were established. Interrater reliability and internal consistency were found to be high (intraclass correlation coefficient？=？.82, p？<？.001; Cronbach’s alpha？=？.96, p？<？.001, respectively). When participants were separated by age, convergent validity between the Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay Scale and Schutte Assessing Emotions Scale of participants aged？≥？26 years was high (rs？=？.83, p？<？.002) compared to those？≤？25 years (rs？=？.58, p？<？.002). Six participants (16.6%) received Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay Scale scores of 0 and were identified as potentially exhibiting professional behavioral problems; three of these students demonstrated professional behavior problems in the academic and/or fieldwork settings. The Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay Scale can be used as a screen to identify whether students may exhibit professional behavior problems; however, caution should be used as some identified students may be able to prevent professional behavior problems once aware of program expectations