Effect of Emotional Intelligence and Gender on Job Satisfaction of Primary School Teachers

The objective of the study was to find out the effect of EI and gender on job satisfaction of primary school teachers. A total of 300 (150 male and 150 female) primary school teachers were selected randomly for the study. Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction Scale (TJSS) were used to collect the data. The study found a significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction. Regression analysis showed that emotional management and emotional maturity significantly predicted the job satisfaction. The results of the two-way ANOVA showed that the interaction effect of gender and EI was not significant. Results also showed that level of EI significantly affected the job satisfaction of primary school teachers. However, there is no significant difference between male and female teachers regarding the level of job satisfaction. There are other factors which affect job satisfaction but the role of EI cannot be neglected. So the level of EI must be taken into consideration in order to select the best teachers.


Introduction
Nowadays teaching profession has become extremely challenging.In this age of computer and internet, information is just one click away from the students.This situation forces teachers into a very hectic and busy schedule.Besides teachings, primary teachers are forced to undertake many works that are not part of their duty.Due to which teachers usually feel stressed, dissatisfied and burn-out.Students' performance is usually related to teachers' ability to teach and function effectively.
Intellectual intelligence (IQ) does not guarantee a healthy well being.A person without Emotional intelligence (EI) can have best ideas, analytical mind and best training but he cannot be a good leader.(Goleman, 2001).The concept of EI began in early 1930s, when researchers tried to describe a nonintellective intelligence as "social intelligence" (Throndike, 1936).Mayer, DiPaolo and Salovey (1990, p. 772) gave their first definition of EI as "the part of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to differentiate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions".Mayer and Salovey (1993, pp. 439-440;1997, p. 10) expanded their definition to include "the verbal and non-verbal appraisal and expression of emotion, the regulation of emotion in the self and others, and utilization of emotional content in problem-solving."Conversely, general intelligence has been defined as a person's overall capacity for adaptation through effective cognition and information processing (Roberts, Zeidner and Matthews, 2001, pp. 223-224).In simpler terms, emotional intelligence might be defined as the set of skills people use to read, understand, and react effectively to emotional signals sent by others and oneself (Mayer and Salovey, 1993, p. 10).Thus it is clear that skills such as empathy, problem-solving, optimism, and self-awareness which allow people to understand, reflect, and react to various environmental situations are also related to Emotional Intelligence.Goleman (1995) defined the emotional as emotional literacy.It is the emotional intelligence by which an individual has an ability to relate to others with companion and empathy, have well acquired social skills and use this emotional awareness to direct their acts and behaviors.Reuven Bar-On (1988) has placed EI in the context of personality, health and well-being.Daniel Goleman (1998) reformulated EI in terms of a theory of organizational behavior and job performance.EI has five major components: self-awareness, selfregulation, motivation, empathy and social skills (Goleman, 1998).Self-awareness may be defined as the ability of a person to perceive his emotions, strength, worth and capabilities and self-regulation is the ability to control emotional interactions and to think before implementing it into behavior.Empathy is the strength of a person to perceive the others' feelings.This may help him to act in such a way that those feelings may fulfill successfully.For the development and creation of good working relationship social skills are required.(Goleman, 1998).All these models, however, share a common core of basic concepts including Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management.

Figure 1. Showing the broad view of Emotional
Intelligence (Source: www.genos.com.au/home)Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso (2000) and Afolabi (2004) argued that emotional intelligence is not a single trait or ability but it is a composite of various emotions and reasoning abilities.Ciarrochi, Forgas, and Mayer (2011) stressed that the ability to understand, perceive and express emotions in an appropriate way can refract whether an individual is successful or not as an employee in a career.Lopes, Salovey, Cote, and Beers (2005) in their research found that emotional intelligence is associated with important outcomes such as high quality social relationships.Emotional intelligence may contribute to work performance (as reflected in salary, salary increase and company rank) by enabling people to nurture positive relationships at work, work effectively in teams and build social capital.Work performance often depends on the support and advice and other resources as provided by Seibert, Kraimer, and Liden (2001).The ability to manage emotions can help people nurture positive effect, avoid being overwhelmed by negative effect, and cope with stress (Afolabi, 2004).Other emotional abilities such as perceiving and understanding emotions, also contribute indirectly to the quality of emotional experience by helping people to identify and interpret cues that inform self-regulatory action.
The attitudes which a worker has about his/her job may be defined as job satisfaction.Berry (1997) defined job satisfaction as an "individual's reaction to job experience".Job satisfaction describes how confine an individual is with his or her job.There are a lot of factors that can influence a person's level of job satisfaction; these factors include the pay scale and allowances, the promotion system within a company, social relationships, the work environment, quality of the working conditions, leadership, management style and culture, employee involvement and autonomous work groups and the job itself.Many authors have theorized that emotional intelligence adds to people's capacity to work effectively in teams and manage work stress (Caruso and Salovey, 2004).Emotional intelligence can influence job satisfaction as well.It is assumed that the people those who entail the expression of emotions are more satisfied with their job.These people can control their negative feelings and focused on positive emotions.Job satisfaction can be influenced by gender differences especially in jobs which have been fully defined as "masculine" like army, policing, and heavy factories Job satisfaction is a positive attitude than an individual has towards his job (Furnham, 1997).Working environment (Moriarty, Edmonds, Blatchford, and Martin, 2001) and headmaster's relationships with teachers (Menon and Christou, 2002) are significant sources of job satisfaction for teachers.Other factors that contribute to job satisfaction include relations with colleagues and students, opportunities to participate in decision making, working conditions, school culture, responsibility, communication, feedback from others and the nature of the work itself (Chaplin, 1995;Scott and Dinham, 2003).Looking at all the factors mentioned, it would seem that all the dimensions of EI would fit in very nicely with these factors.Researchers listed numerous factors such as personality factors, personal characteristics, payment, promotion, job safety, the nature of the work, organizational structure, leadership and supervision, relations with coworkers, physical conditions of the job, and equality, which affect the job satisfaction of employees.

Literature Review
There are mixed results of studies conducted to study the influence of emotional intelligence on job performance.Some studies suggest that emotional intelligence and job performance are positively correlated.In a study Kelley and Caplan (1993) found that the Engineers who were rated as stars by their peers were better at relating to others, means that the engineers who have high emotional intelligence showed high performance.Another study conducted among the Air Force recruiters generated similar findings.The follow up investigation found that the future who had high emotional intelligence were 2.6 times successful than those who did not (Kelley and Caplan, 1993).Bar-On (1997) in his study found a positive relationship between a combination of the dimensions of EI, interpersonal relationship, intrapersonal relationship, self-adaptability, stress management and overall feeling with job satisfaction.A negative relationship between EI and burnout and positive relationship between EI and job satisfaction were found by Platsidou (2010).Teachers with high EI are likely to experience greater job satisfaction (Wong, Wong, and Peng, 2010).
EI was found to be significantly and positively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Guleryuz, Guney, Aydin, and Asan, 2008).Kafetsios and Zampetakis (2008) predicted that positive and negative affect at work substantially mediate the relationship between EI and job satisfaction with positive affect exerting a stronger influence.Sy, Tram, and O'Hara (2006) found that employees' emotional intelligence was positively correlated with job satisfaction and performance.Tans (2003) found that emotional intelligence was positively correlated with job satisfaction and contextual performance.He also found that other variables like gender, personal value and personality also predict the job satisfaction and performance of the employee.Hulin and Smith (1964) postulate that sex per se is not related to either high or low satisfaction.He found that sex alongwith pay, job level and promotional opportunity influence job satisfaction.Zaleznik, Christensen, and Roethlisberger (1958) in a study found that despite receiving the same pay and having the same social position as men, women were more satisfied than men.Varca, Shaffer, and McCauley (1983) contended that women and men were most likely to differ in satisfaction with organizational rewards, namely, pay and promotion.Afolabi, Awosola, and Omole (2010) in their study found that level of emotional intelligence determine the level of satisfaction and performance of the police officers.High emotional intelligence means more satisfaction and better performance in comparison to police officers with low emotional intelligence.Also, police officers who have male or female roles with high emotional intelligence perform better and they are more satisfied with their job than police officers who have male or female roles with low emotional intelligence.Khouly, Ghoneim, Ghadami, & Ibrahim (2011) in their study found that gender has insignificantly influenced job satisfaction; emotional intelligence significantly influences job satisfaction; emotional intelligence and gender interact to influence job satisfaction.Similar results were also found by Tabatabaei and Farazmehr (2015).
In a study on 215 physical education teachers Mousavi, Yarmohammadi, Nosrat, and Tarasi (2012) found a significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction.They also found the positive relationship between the components of social skills, empathy, and motivation and job satisfaction.
Stepwise regression analysis showed that among the five components of emotional intelligence only three components, viz., motivation, empathy and social skills, predicted the job satisfaction of teachers.On the basis of the results of their study they explained that by improving emotional intelligence through training, job satisfaction of a teacher can be increased.In a study Syed, Rohany, Mohammad, Mohamed and Muhammad (2012) found a significant positive relationship between EI and job satisfaction and no effect of gender on EI and job satisfaction.
On the contrary, the study by Donaldson-Feilder and Bond (2004) on 290 workers in the UK suggests that neither acceptance nor EI is related with job satisfaction.Other studies have also suggested that there was no relationship between the EI and job satisfaction or an inconsistent relationship between the two (Afolabi et al., 2009;Austin, 2004;Day and Caroll, 2004;Janovics and Christiansen, 2001).Most of the past researchers studied on limited criteria but they did not explained how EI is related to salary and job satisfaction.
Moving further from the foregoing discussion, the present study tried to find answers to these questions: Does emotional intelligence influence job satisfaction?Does gender difference influence job satisfaction?Does emotional intelligence and gender interact to affect job satisfaction among primary school teachers?Do the five dimensions of EI predict the job satisfaction jointly and independently?

Hypotheses
On the basis of the review of studies and objectives of the study, the following hypotheses were formulated -1.There is no significant relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction of primary school teachers.
2. There is no significant influence/effect of emotional intelligence on job satisfaction of primary school teachers.
3. There is no significant influence/effect of gender on job satisfaction of primary school teachers.
4. There is no significant interactional influence/effect of gender and emotional intelligence on job satisfaction of primary school teachers.
5. There is no significant joint and independent effect of EI of gender on job satisfaction.
6.There is no significant contribution of five dimensions of EI to job satisfaction.

Methodology
Research design 2*3 factorial design was used to test the hypotheses.The division of variable was as follows- Factor 1-Gender i.e.Male and Female and Factor 2-Emotional Intelligence i.e.High EI, Average EI and Low EI.Job Satisfaction of primary school teachers was taken as dependent variable.

Research sample
Firstly 400 primary school teachers (200 male and 200 female) were randomly selected from 150 primary schools.They were administered Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) individually.On the basis of results of EIS, all the subjects were divided into six groups, viz., male with high EI, male with average EI, male with low EI, female with high EI, female with average EI and female with low EI.Out of which 50-50 subjects were randomly selected in each group.Thus 300 subjects (150 male and 150 female) were finally selected.The age of the subjects ranged from 25 to 40 years.A set of questionnaires was used to collect the data.A demographic questionnaire was used to collect the basic information like age, gender, caste, teaching experience and education qualification.To measure EI, 400 primary school teachers were given EIS individually.Though there was no time limit for the scale subjects were requested to finish the work within 40 minutes.On the basis of the total scores of EI, subjects were divided into six groups, viz., male with high EI, male with average EI, male with low EI, female with high EI, female with average EI and female with low EI.An equal number of subjects, i.e. 50, were selected randomly in each group.Thus a total of 300 subjects (150 male and 150 female) were finally selected.The subjects thus finally selected were administered TJSS individually.Though there was no time limit for the test subjects were requested to finish the work within 40 minutes.The completely filled-in scale was collected and scoring was done as per the instruction given in the manual of the test.

Findings / Results
The data were analyzed with the help of SPSS-17 programme.The results of the study are as follows.Results of interaction effect between EI and gender on job satisfaction is shown in Table-5.The results of the two way ANOVA showed no significant interactional effect of EI with gender on job satisfaction (F = 0.90; p > 0.05).So we accept our fourth hypothesis.The results of two-way ANOVA analysis showed a significant effect between EI and job satisfaction (F = 60.66;p < 0.001).This finding show that there is a significant difference in job satisfaction between subjects with high and low level of EI.So we reject our second hypothesis.However, when viewed from the perspective of gender, the results showed that there was no significant difference between male and female teachers on job satisfaction.(F = 3.08; p > 0.05).So we accept our third hypothesis.
Figure-2 shows the simple effect of EI on job satisfaction.It can be observed that the main effect of gender is also present but that effect is not significant.The mean of female subjects is low at low EI level and average EI level but high at high EI level.Further, the nearly parallel lines of male and female subjects between low and average EI level render the interaction effect non-significant.Only the main effect of EI is significant.The significant main effect is indicated by non-zero slope of the lines representing main effect.That is, main effect is significant if the line is not parallel to the X-axis.

Figure 2. Showing the Simple Effect of EI
In order to test the significance of simple effect of EI of male and female, we calculated the ANOVA to the EI means.Results are shown in Table-6.Results show that F value of EI for male (F=24.93;p < 0.01) and EI for female (F=36.64;p < 0.01) is significant.So we can say that EI of both the gender jointly and independently influence the job satisfaction of primary school teachers.So we reject our fifth hypothesis.Multiple regression analyses was used to ascertain the relationship and contribution of the five dimensions of EI viz.self awareness, emotional management, emotional maturity, empathy and social competency and social skills.The result of the analysis is shown in Table -7.Results show that the value of correlation coefficient of the five dimensions of EI on job satisfaction (R = 0.584) is positive and significant.These finding showed that teachers who were generally at the high and average level of EI were satisfied with their job.The regression analysis of the five dimensions of EI with job satisfaction indicates that the derived regression equation is significant (F = 30.40;p < 0.01).Hence, the five dimensions of EI predict job satisfaction.Value of beta weight for each dimension showed that emotional management (t=4.01,p < 0.01) and emotional maturity (t=3.14, p < 0.01) had a significant predictive power with job satisfaction while the other three dimensions, on the contrary, showed no significant predictive power.The joint influence of all the five dimensions of EI is 34 %.shows that emotional management contributes 32% and emotional maturity contributes 14% of total beta weight.It is clear that only emotional management and maturity had the power of prediction of job satisfaction of primary school teachers.

Discussion
Results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between EI and job satisfaction among primary school teachers.This means that higher the level of EI, the higher the job satisfaction and vice versa.This findings support the results of previous studies conducted by Bar-On (1997), Guleryuz et al. (2008), Kafetsios and Zampetakis (2008), Khouly et al. (2011), Platsidou (2010), and Syed et al. (2012).EI is said to be able to influence one's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demand and pressure, clearly an important set of behaviors to harness under stressful work condition (Bar-On, 1997).It is clear from this study that the primary school teachers experience job satisfaction despite the challenges and demands of their jobs.Results also show that the five components viz.self-awareness, managing emotions, maturity, empathy and social competency and social skills are positively correlated with job satisfaction and have significant predictive power for job satisfaction.According to Goleman (1998aGoleman ( , 1998b)), individuals who have high EI are able to know and feel their own and others' emotions.These individuals are able to make better, accurate and rational decisions, produce a more realistic assessment and have high confidence in themselves.The ability to adapt to the mood of other individuals or to empathize is also one of the characteristics of a person with high EI (Goleman, 1998a).These abilities are no doubt very important in the teaching profession whereby teachers are constantly expected to make decisions based on their understanding of the students' behaviors, emotions and cognitions.Adaptability and empathy will make it easier for a teacher to interact well and effectively with both the teachers and the students.This indicates that individuals with high EI are also those with good social skills.They can easily adapt to the working environment and find satisfaction in their job.The individual with high EI will create a good, harmonious and conducive environment which will, in turn, give them satisfaction in careers that they pursue (Cherniss, 2001).In addition, the ability to understand and appreciate the emotions of others in an organization is also an important aspect of EI in order to create harmony within an organization.In this context, one could say that these factors would help teachers in their ability to create harmony within the school.No gender difference was observed related to job satisfaction.It means that job satisfaction is not affected by gender.Also, the findings indicate that gender does not affect the interaction between EI and job satisfaction.This shows that gender cannot act as moderate variable in the relationship between EI and job satisfaction.This result is consistent with the findings of the studies conducted by Brog, Riding, and Falzon (1991), Brody and Hall (1993), Bar-On (1997), Schutte et al. (1998), Sutarso (1999) and Syed et al. (2012) as they have also found no interaction between gender and the variables studied.Similarly a study by Goleman (1998b) found more similarities than differences in the EI of men and women, was also in the line of present study.But Khouly et al. (2011) in their study found a significant interactional effect between EI and Gender.

Conclusion
The outcomes of present study can be summed up into five major findings: First, EI and job satisfaction are positively and significantly correlated with each other; second, gender influences job satisfaction though the impact is statistically insignificant; third, emotional intelligence significantly influences job satisfaction; fourth, emotional intelligence and gender do not interact to influence job satisfaction; and fifth, all the five dimensions of EI jointly predict the job satisfaction and emotional management and emotional maturity significantly predict the job satisfaction in primary school teachers.The findings of the present study indicate that EI is important in terms of its relationship with job satisfaction.It also influences human behavior as a whole.So not only in the field of education but also in all other fields of life, EI plays a vital role.Though there are a lot of other factors other than EI which affect job satisfaction the role of EI cannot be neglected.High level of EI also indicates the high ability of selfawareness, managing one's own emotions as well as others' emotions, empathy and high ability of social competency and social skills along with emotional maturity.

Recommendations
A teacher with high EI also has to deal with daily pressures and challenges which make her/him more fit for the teaching job.So, selection boards for teachers across the state as well as in the centre are advised to keep in mind the level of emotional intelligence of the candidates who tend to be selected for the teaching job.

Table 3 .
X and sd of Job Satisfaction of male and female across level of EI Gender

Level of EI N
Table 4. Showing the correlation analysis between EI and Job Satisfaction Emotional Intelligence

Table 5 .
Showing the Summary of the ANOVA for the 2*3 factorial design with n =300 Value is significant at the 0.001 level.

Table 6 .
Showing the ANOVA for simple effect of EI Value is significant at the 0.001 level.

Table 7 .
Summary of multiple regression analysis of five dimensions of EI and job satisfaction