Marta Sainz

Trait emotional intelligence and academic performance : controlling for the effects of IQ, personality, and self-concept

This article analyses the relationship between trait emotional intelligence and academic performance, controlling for the effects of IQ, personality, and self-concept dimensions. A sample of 290 preadolescents (11-12 years old) took part in the study. The instruments used were (a) Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire—Adolescents Short Form (TEIQue-ASF); (b) Children’s Personality Questionnaire (CPQ; Form A, Part A); (c) IQ test TIDI-2; (d) Adaptation Questionnaire (CAI-1); and (e) academic performance. A positive and significant correlation coefficient between trait EI measured by the TEIQue-ASF and general academic performance was found. The TEIQue-ASF showed incremental validity to predict general academic performance, after controlling for intelligence, personality, and self-concept characteristics.

Characteristics leading teachers to nominate secondary students as gifted in Spain

What are the characteristics leading teachers to nominate gifted students in Spain? To answer this question, several demographic (i.e., gender, grade) and psychological (i.e., multiple intelligences, emotional intelligence, intellectual aptitude, and divergent thinking) characteristics of 563 secondary students nominated as gifted by their teachers were analyzed. Results showed a general gifted profile of the nominated students defined by higher scores in their naturalist and social intelligences, stress management, and verbal, mechanical, and spatial reasoning. Additional analysis indicated that students’ gender and grade also influenced teachers’ nominations of gifted students. Based on the associations among the demographic and psychological characteristics included in this study, nominated students could be classified in five specific gifted profiles, namely, moderately gifted students, social-emotionally gifted students, artistically gifted students, intellectually gifted students, and generally gifted students. Discussion of the limitations of the study, directions for future research, and educational implications of the study are provided.

Inteligencia y Pensamiento Científico- Creativo: su convergencia en la explicación del rendimiento académico de los alumnos

Introduction. Academic performance is usually generatly explained by students’ intelligence, although other factors such as personality and motivation also a...

Gardner’s multiple inteligences: Is it possible to think about inteligence without a g factor?

As an answer to the reviews stating the lack of innovation in test methodology as well as the little attention given to the social and cultural variables in intelligence assessment, Gardner (1983, 1999) develops the Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory with more ecological tasks which are closer to the subjects’ daily routines so that these may be evaluated. In the Spectrum Project framework, several tasks were developed to measure MI, 6 of which were chosen and measure specific intelligences, namely, verbal-linguistic, corporal-kinesthetic, visual-spatial and musical, mathematics. A total of 294 children aged 5 to 7 were evaluated on those tasks. Results show that if at a precision level, the internal consistence indices may be considered reasonable, than there must be some concerns in regards to the construct validity in Gardner’s theoretical model. In fact, and contrarily to Gardner’s position, it is possible to find a general factor, despite not measuring more than 40% of the explained variance. Evidence was not found concerning factors that could group some of these intelligences, as recently proposed by Gardner.