WEB PAPER
Abstract
Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) may be related to student characteristics (such as conscientiousness and empathy), and
performance at medical school, although few studies have so far been conducted.
Aim: To investigate the association of EI with students age, sex, ethnicity and stage of study at a London medical school.
Methods: All medical students were invited to complete an online EI instrument, the MayerSaloveyCaruso Emotional
Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) version 2, a 141-item measure of the ability to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions. An
additional questionnaire to gather demographic data was linked to the MSCEIT.
Results: We analysed 263 responses from a population of 2114 medical students after three reminders (12.3% response rate).
Aggregated EI scores were similar through the curriculum. Age, sex and ethnicity explained 9.2% of the variance in aggregated EI
scores. In terms of managing emotions, 6.7% of the variance was explained by the stage of study, with significantly higher scores
for students in their final year compared to those in the first two years.
Conclusion: This exploratory study provides preliminary data on EI scores for UK medical students identifies factors associated
with higher and lower scores and suggests that aggregated EI scores remain stable during medical training.
Introduction
Practice points
Correspondence: , R. Jones, Kings College London, Department of General Practice and Primary Care, 5 Lambeth Walk, London SE11 6SP, UK.
Tel: 44 (0) 20 74844111; fax: 44 (0) 20 78484102; email: roger.jones@kcl.ac.uk
e42
assessments (KS3) and general certificate of secondary education (GCSE) marks. In two studies of Spanish high school
students, both using a Spanish version of the MSCEIT, one
reported that high EI was significantly associated with
academic performance and pro-social behaviour (Marquez
et al. 2006) and the other reported that strategic EI was
significantly correlated with how many times female students
were nominated as friends by their peers and with teacher
ratings of male students academic behaviour and performance
(Mestre et al. 2006). A study applying the MSCEIT to a sample
of undergraduate business students in the United States found
that EI was significantly related to public speaking effectiveness. Moreover, there was a high correlation between EI and
conscientiousness and that these features interacted significantly with group behaviour and public speaking effectiveness, as well as academic performance (Rode et al. 2007).
Several authors report the impact of demographic variables
on EI scores. In a study (using a Spanish version of the
MSCEIT) of 946 college and high school students (Extremera
et al. 2006), significantly higher EI scores were obtained by
females and older respondents. This finding has been echoed
in other studies (Mayer et al. 1999; Ciarrochi et al. 2000; Mayer
et al. 2002; Palmer et al. 2005; Wong et al. 2007). Using the
multifactor emotional intelligence scale (MEIS), a precursor of
the MSCEIT, an American study of adults and adolescents
found that EI ability levels increased significantly with age, and
that females significantly outscored males (Mayer et al. 1999).
A further study applying the MEIS to Australian psychology
undergraduates (Ciarrochi et al. 2000) also reported that
females significantly outscored male students, females tending
to be better at perceiving emotions. In another Australian
study, applying the MSCEIT to a sample of adolescents and
adults drawn from the general population, females significantly outscored males on all measures (Palmer et al. 2005).
The MSCEIT user manual (Mayer et al. 2002), presents
evidence in support of younger respondents scoring significantly lower than their older counterparts in their ability to use,
understand and manage emotions. In an exploratory study of
undergraduate psychology and business management students
in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, using Wongs emotional intelligence scale (WEIS), an EI measure developed for
Chinese respondents, older age was found to be significantly
related to higher EI scores (Wong et al. 2007). Few studies
have investigated the relationship between ethnicity and EI.
An American study of undergraduate psychology students
using the emotional intelligence scale (EIS) found that
Hispanic students significantly outscored their white counterparts (Van Rooy et al. 2005). A further study from the United
States (Trinidad et al. 2004) found that Asian/Pacific Islander
adolescents scored significantly higher on the MEIS than their
white, Hispanic/Latino and multiethnic colleagues. Mayer et al.
(2002) assert that EI scales may, to a certain extent, lack
cross-cultural applicability and are developing, what they
believe to be, a more sensitive measure of EI amongst ethnic
minorities.
Although some information is available about the normative values of EI in student populations (Conte 2005), very little
is known about EI in medical students. We have identified
a small number of articles which have looked at EI and
Methods
We used an online version of the MSCEIT, a 141-item
instrument that measures the ability to perceive, facilitate,
understand, and manage emotions in ourselves and others
(Mayer et al. 2002). In this measure, perceiving (PEIQ) and
facilitating (FEIQ) branches combine to form the experiential
emotional intelligence (EEIQ) area, whilst the understanding
(UEIQ) and managing emotions (MEIQ) branches combine to
form the strategic emotional intelligence (SEIQ) area (Mayer
et al. 2002). Table 1 provides a summary of these features and
Table 2 outlines the psychometric properties of the MSCEIT.
All four scores combine to form an aggregated EI score
e43
M. Todres et al.
Branch
Question types
Findings
Statistical analysis
Data were analysed using SPSS version 15.0. The one-sample
KolmogorovSmirnov test was used to check whether the
continuous variables of the study were normally distributed.
Independent sample t-tests were conducted to compare means
of MSCEIT scales between the sexes, different age groups and
groups created according to time taken to complete the test.
The KruskalWallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)
test was used to compare the time of completion between
different ethnic groups, and the Spearman correlation procedure was used in order to measure the association between
completion time and MSCEIT scores. One-way ANOVA tests
were used to determine whether significant differences existed
among the means of MSCEIT scales in different ethnic groups
or stage of study, based on the post hoc Tukeys test. Finally,
multivariate analysis was conducted for all MSCEIT scales
using linear regressions, based on the Enter method, to identify
factors predictive of MSCEIT scores. Although the descriptive
statistics for all the MSCEIT scales have been calculated and
presented for all the different ethnic groups (white, black or
black British, Asian or Asian British, mixed, Chinese and other
ethnic groups), in the multiple linear regression models, the
ethnic groups with the lower numbers of representatives have
been treated as one group (i.e., the results of Black or black
British, ethnically mixed students, Chinese and other ethnic
groups, have been analysed as one group). Assuming that the
ethnic group membership (in one of the above three groups,
white, Asian or Asian British and other) would add another 5%
in the proportion of variance explained, our tests had adequate
power (0.80) to detect the ethnic group differences in MSCEIT
scores, at a significance level of 0.05.
Characteristic
Number of students
Sex
Male
Female
Age
525 years
25 years
Ethnicity
White
Asian or Asian British
Black or Black British
Chinese or other South-East Asian
Mixed
Unknown
Stage of study
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Study Sample
Medical
school
population
263 (12.3%)
2114 (100%)
75 (28.5%)
188 (71.5%)
824 (39.0%)
1290 (61.0%)
191 (72.6%)
72 (27.4%)
1403* (66.5%)
707* (33.5%)
161
43
10
22
27
0
(61.2%)
(16.3%)
(3.8%)
(8.4%)
(10.3%)
(0%)
938
487
138
283
87
177
(44.5%)
(23.1%)
(6.5%)
(13.4%)
(4.1%)
(8.4%)
56
37
59
72
39
(21.3%)
(14.1%)
(22.4%)
(27.4%)
(14.8%)
442
427
403
433
409
(20.9%)
(20.2%)
(19.1%)
(20.5%)
(19.3%)
Results
A total of 358 students completed the demographic questionnaire and 265 of these also completed the MSCEIT. Two
students who completed the questionnaire in less than 10 min
were eliminated from the analysis because they had scored
more than 3 SDs below the mean on the aggregated scale,
suggesting they had made random responses. A total of 93
students who completed the demographic questionnaire, but
not the MSCEIT were also excluded from the study.
Two-hundred and sixty-three responses (a response rate of
12.3%) were, therefore, included in the final analysis.
Completion times were not normally distributed. The mean
completion time was 31.5 min (SD 15.5, range 11135). No
association was found between completion time and the
scores of any of the subscales of MSCEIT, or with age group,
sex, ethnicity or stage of study. Fifty-six percent of students
(146/263) completed the MSCEIT in less than 30 min, and their
mean aggregated EI score, did not differ significantly from the
rest of the students (101.5 vs. 100.8, p 4 0.05). 12.2% of
students (32/263) completed the questionnaire in less than
20 min, and, similarly, their scores did not differ significantly
from the rest of the students (99.3 vs. 101.5, p 4 0.05).
Respondents
Table 3 presents the students demographic details and their
stage in the medical curriculum. Females, white students and
ethnically mixed students were over-represented in our
sample. Additionally, year 2 and final year students were
under-represented and year 4 students were over-represented
compared with the total number of students at each stage of
the curriculum. As a check on possible sampling bias, means
and standard errors for the principal outcomes (MSCEIT
aggregate and branch scores), were recalculated using a
weighting system (for sex, ethnicity and stage of study). They
MSCEIT scores
All MSCEIT scores in our sample were normally distributed.
The mean aggregated MSCEIT score was 101.2 (SD 13.7, range
72147), while the mean experiential area score was 98.8 (SD
14.6, range 66139) and the mean strategic area score was 104
(SD 12.1, range 71150). For the branch scores, the perceiving
emotions mean score was 98.4 (SD 14.7, range 32141),
facilitating thought mean score was 100.9 (SD 15.2, range
65152), understanding emotions mean score 107.3 (SD 12.5,
range 76145) and managing emotions mean score 98.1 (SD
12.2, range 66143). Table 4 shows the means and SDs
according to age group, sex, ethnicity and stage of study for
the aggregated score, the two-area scores and the four-branch
scores.
Women scored slightly higher than men on all of the scales,
with their aggregated score and scores in the experiential area
and in perceiving emotions branch reaching statistical significance (95% CI:1.48.8, 2.19.7 and 1.39.3, respectively).
Analysis of age differences in MSCEIT scores indicated that
younger students (under 25 years) scored significantly lower in
the strategic area and its two branches, understanding and
managing emotions (95% CI: 8.9 to 2.7, 8.2 to 1.6 and
7.4 to 1.2, respectively). The effect of stage of study was
significant in the managing emotions branch, with final year
students scoring significantly higher compared to those in
years 1 and 2 (95% CI: 0.813.7 and 1.215.5, respectively).
However, no significant differences in aggregate EI scores
across the year groups were noted. Students from the Asian or
Asian British group scored significantly lower than those from
the white group on the strategic area and on the understanding
e45
M. Todres et al.
Characteristics
Sex
Male
Female
Age
525 years
25 years
Ethnicity
White
Asian or Asian British
Black or Black British
Chinese or other South-East Asian
Mixed
Stage of study
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Perceiving
mean (SD)
Facilitating
mean (SD)
Experiential
mean (SD)
Understanding
mean (SD)
Managing
mean (SD)
94.6 (15.1)
99.9 (14.2)*
98.4 (16.7)
102 (14.4)
94.6 (13.9)
100.4 (14.6)*
106.8 (13.1)
107.5 (12.3)
96.1 (12.4)
98.9 (12.1)
100.3 (15.2)
102.8 (15.1)
97.9 (14.8)
101.1 (13.9)
105.9 (12.5)
110.8 (11.9)*
96.8 (12.0)
101.5 (12.2)*
97.5 (14.9)
100.7 (13.8)
Strategic
mean (SD)
Aggregate
mean (SD)
102.6 (12.6)
104.5 (11.8)
97.5 (13.7
102.6 (13.4)*
102.4 (12.1)
108.2 (11.0)**
99.6 (13.6)
105.4 (13.1)*
99.9
93.1
99.1
98.8
97.3
(14.3)
(13.2)
(13.5)
(14.6)
(18.4)
101.6
98.9
100.6
99.7
101.5
(14.7)
(15.3)
(14.5)
(16.8)
(17.3)
100.2
93.6
98.9
98.3
99
(14.3)
(13.6)
(14.8)
(14.7)
(16.9)
109.2
101.9
110.4
103.9
105.9
(12.4)*
(12.1)*
(16.6)
(11.4)
(10.0)
99.7
95.4
95.4
94.5
96.6
(12.6)
(10.9)
(11.3)
(10.9)
(12.8)
106.2
98.9
104.2
99.6
102.4
(12.2)*
(10.9)*
(12.5)
(10.6)
(11.0)
103.3
95.1
101.7
98
100.8
(13.4)*
(12.5)*
(15.6)
(10.5)
(15.6)
97
95.3
102.2
98
98.2
(13.9)
(13.7)
(16.4)
(15.1)
(12.4)
99.4
100.3
102
102.7
98.9
(13.9)
(16.1)
(13.9)
(16.4)
(15.8)
96.8
96.2
101.9
99.6
97.8
(13.8)
(14.9)
(14.9)
(15.3)
(13.4)
108
103.2
107
107.6
109.9
(9.7)
(12.4)
(13.9)
(13.2)
(12.0)
95.2
93.9
98.2
100.1
102.5
(12.6)*
(10.4)*
(12)
(10.5)
(14.9)*
102.6
99
103.9
105.6
107.6
(10.6)*
(11.1)*
(12.9)
(12.2)
(11.9)*
99.2
96.3
103.4
102.9
102.3
(12.6)
(12.7)
(15.1)
(14.5)
(11.0)
Discussion
Our exploratory study to the best of our knowledge is the first
to report on the use of the MSCEIT in measuring EI in an
undergraduate medical population, and provides information
on the utility of the online version of the instrument and
preliminary data on EI across a medical school population.
The use of an online instrument provided several potential
benefits including speed and ease of data collection, and
students ability to complete the test at a time and place
convenient to them. However, our response rate was low and
e46
93.9
7.1
4.5
4.3
Standardised B coefficient
(95% CI)
(86.3101.5)
(11.5 to 2.6)
(0.98.1)
(0.58.0)
88.8 (80.597.1)
5.1 (1.29.0)
5.8 (10.7 to 0.90)
104.3
6.9
6.4
3.7
(97.6111)
(12.2 to 1.5)
(10.4 to 2.5)
(0.4 to 7.0)
0.19
0.15
0.14
0.16
0.15
0.20
0.20
0.14
90.6 (82.298.9)
4.4 (0.5 to 8.4)
6 (10.9 to 1)
0.14
0.15
108.9 (101.8115.9)
6.7 (10.8 to 2.5)
0.20
97.4 (90.5104.3)
6.2 (11.2 to 1.2)
7.3 (12.7 to 1.8)
0.21
0.21
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to our department e-resources developer,
Stevo Durbaba, and our department statistician, Paul Seed, for
their valuable assistance with this study, and for the support
Notes on contributors
MATHEW TODRES is a research associate in medical education in the
Department of General Practice and Primary Care, Kings College London.
ZOI TSIMTSIOU is an honorary research fellow in the Department of
General Practice and Primary Care, Kings College London. She is also a
general practitioner currently working in the NHS in Greece.
ANNE STEPHENSON is a senior lecturer and director of community
education in the Department of General Practice and Primary Care, Kings
College London. She is also a general practitioner working in Southeast
London.
ROGER JONES is a Wolfson professor and head, Department of General
Practice and Primary Care, Kings College London. He is also a general
practitioner working in Southeast London.
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