Award Date

5-2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Special Education

Department

Special Education

First Committee Member

Susan Miller, Chair

Second Committee Member

Pam Campbell

Third Committee Member

Kristin Sayeski

Graduate Faculty Representative

Richard Tandy

Number of Pages

139

Abstract

This study involved an investigation of the emotional intelligence profiles of three groups of adolescents: those with learning disabilities, those with an emotional disturbances, and adolescents without disabilities. A 2 (gender) X 3 (group) X 4 (subscale) mixed design with repeated measures on subscale was used to determine whether differences in emotional intelligence, as measured by the BarOn EQi: YV, existed among these three groups of adolescents. Specifically, performance within the four subscales of intrapersonal, interpersonal, stress management and adaptability as well as in the overall composite scores were compared to detect differences between gender, and disability groups.

A total of 66 middle and high school students (38 males and 28 females) participated in this study, of these 66 participants, 33 had learning disabilities, 14 had emotional disturbances, and 19 had no disability. The participants ranged in age from 13.0 years old to 18.7 years old.

A licensed school psychologist individually administered the BarOn EQi: YV (2000) to the participants within their school environments over a period of six weeks. Questions were read aloud to the participants and responses were recorded on the assessment protocol. The school psychologist scored each assessment. To establish interscorer reliability, a second licensed school psychologist randomly selected and scored 25% of the total assessments. Interscorer reliability was determined to be 97.5%.

The factorial ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for Subscale at the .05 significance level. There were no significant interaction effects among the within and between-subjects variables. Pairwise comparisons revealed a significantly higher mean score for the adaptability subscale than the mean score for the intrapersonal subscale. Results of the study also indicate that the composite scores of male students with emotional disturbances were the highest, and significantly higher than female students with emotional disturbances, and male students with learning disabilities. All groups of students' emotional intelligence composite scores were within the average range, with the exception of female students with emotional disturbances. Their mean standard score of 84 was within two standard deviations below the mean of 100.

Keywords

Adjustment (Psychology) in adolescence; Emotional intelligence; Special education; Teenagers with disabilities

Disciplines

Child Psychology | Educational Psychology | Special Education Administration | Special Education and Teaching

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Comments

Signatures have been redacted for privacy and security measures.

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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