Emotional Intelligence and Personality Traits as Predictors of Occupational Therapy students' Practice Education Performance: A Cross ‐Sectional Study

This study investigated whether occupational therapy students' emotional intelligence and personality traits are predictive of specific aspects of their fieldwork performance. A total of 114 second and third year undergraduate occupational therapy students (86.6% response rate) completed the Genos Emotional Intelligence Inventory (Genos EI) and the Ten‐Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). Fieldwork performance scores were obtained from the Student Practice Evaluation Form Revised (SPEF‐R). Linear regressions were completed with the SPEF‐R domains being the dependent variables and the Genos EI and TIPI factors being the independent variables. Regression analysis results revealed that the Genos EI subscales of Emotional Management of Others (EMO), Emotional Awareness of Others (EAO), Emotional Expression (EEX) and Emotional Reasoning (ERE) were significant predictors of various domains of students' fieldwork performance. EAO and ERE were significant predictors of students' Communication Skills accounting for 4.6% of its variance. EMO, EAO, EEX and ERE were significant predictors of students' Documentation Skills explaining 6.8% of its variance. EMO was a significant predictor of students' Professional Behaviour accounting for 3.2% of its variance. No TIPI factors were found to be significant predictors of the SPEF‐R domains. Occupational therapy students' emotional intelligence was a significant predictor of components of their fieldwork performance while students' person...
Source: Occupational Therapy International - Category: Occupational Health Authors: Tags: Research Article Source Type: research