Redefining Emotional Intelligence:
A Case Study of
Malaysian Teachers' Perspective
Recent disturbing behaviours of Malaysian teachers reported in the country's daily newspaper suggests that the teaching population in Malaysia is experiencing an "emotional fallout". Although incidents related to the problem seem isolated, it has increased over the years. There can be a number of factors, including the teachers' inability to maintain a stable emotion when encountered with challenging situations in the teaching profession. This study tries to redefine emotional intelligence from the Malaysian teachers' perspective. Specifically, the study aims to: (i) understand the concept of emotional intelligent from the Malaysian teachers' perspective; (ii) seek patterns that could explain factors that contribute to the development of Malaysian teachers' emotional intelligence; (iii) describe factors that lead to emotional instability among the teachers; (iv) explain how these teachers develop and maintain their emotional intelligence.
A case-study design was used and 36 teachers teaching in various schools participated in the study. The age of these teachers were between 30 to 45 years. An in-depth interview protocol was developed based on the emotional intelligence framework suggested by Goleman (1995). Using the in-depth interview process, the teachers were asked a number of semi-structured questions pertaining to the concept of emotional intelligence, the factors that contribute towards the development of healthy emotions, factors that lead to emotional instability, and strategies that teachers used to help develop and maintain healthy emotions, thereby, increasing their emotional intelligence. Data collected from the interview was managed using NVIVO software, and cross-case analysis was conducted to examine patterns relating to the issues being studied. Although the findings emulate the conceptual framework suggested by Goleman, the study was able to identify from the themes that emerged other factors and sub-factors (not mentioned by Goleman) that could lead to the development of healthy emotions and, therefore, higher emotional intelligence among the Malaysian teachers. Participants in the study were also able to succinctly describe elements that trigger unhealthy emotions, and suggested strategies that could help them trounce those emotions.