Relationship Between Emotional Intelligenc and Job Performance Among Service Providers in Rehabilitation Schools in Kenya
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Date
2013-08-14
Authors
Mwathi, Kathungu Beatrice
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Abstract
The Kenya government has established various rehabilitation schools to help in rehabilitating and reintegrating into society, children who commit various offences and end up in the hands of the juvenile justice system. These schools are staffed with various service providers such as Children‟s officers, teachers, nurses, religious leaders and housemothers who ensure successful rehabilitation of these children. Studies have shown that there lacks clarity as to the most appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes that such service providers need to possess to be effective in their job performance. Review of literature indicated that emotional intelligence is important for job performance across a variety of work settings such as business, leadership and education in general. However, there was a general absence of data on the role of emotional intelligence in the job performance of service providers in the behavioral rehabilitation sector. To fill this gap in knowledge, the current study sought to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance among service providers in rehabilitation schools in Kenya. A correlational research design was used to test the hypothesis that, emotional intelligence is significantly related to job performance among service providers of rehabilitation schools in Kenya. Stratified proportionate sampling was used to obtain a sample of 81 service providers from a target population of 103 service providers in rehabilitation schools. Due to non response rate, final data was obtained from 63 service providers. Emotional intelligence was assessed using an adapted version of items borrowed from the tests of Emotional Intelligence developed by Wood, & Tolley (2003), while job performance was assessed using supervisor and self-ratings on a 5 item Likert scale. Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to test the relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance and one way ANOVA to test for differences across demographic variables in emotional intelligence and job performance separately. The findings revealed that there were no significant differences in emotional intelligence as well as in job performance across various demographic variables namely, age, sex, educational qualifications and length of service. In terms of the relationship between the two variables, the study found a significant, moderate and positive relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance among service providers in rehabilitation schools. In addition, it revealed that some dimensions of emotional intelligence such as motivation and social skills were significantly related to job performance, while the empathy dimension was significantly related to teamwork dimension of job performance. Based on the findings, it was suggested that emotional intelligence testing could be factored into recruitment of service providers of rehabilitation schools and that emotional intelligence development programs could be used as an intervention to ensure higher job performance of service providers in rehabilitation schools. In addition, the motivation, social skills and empathy dimensions of emotional intelligence need special attention when it comes to promoting job performance of service providers for rehabilitation schools.
Description
Department of psychology,159p The BF 576 .K37 2010
Keywords
Emotional intelligence --Kenya, Employees --rating of --Kenya Thesis