Interaction Effect of Sex, Locality and Self-Confidence on Emotional Intelligence among Prospective Teachers

The present study has been carried out to assess the interaction effect of sex, locality and self-confidence on Emotional Intelligence on a sample of 100 prospective teachers both male and female belonging to urban and rural localities by applying a (2x2x2) three way factorial design. The data has been collected with the help of Self – Confidence Scale (Bhawlkar, 1992) and Emotional Intelligence Scale (Kumar, 2000). It has been revealed that the main effects of sex and self – confidence are found to be significant whereas the main effects of locality as well as the various interactions are found to be non – significant.


INTRODUCTION
Self -Confidence is an important factor in enhancing Emotional Intelligence amongst individuals. The measurement of self-confidence becomes more essential. Various methods and techniques have been developed to measure self-confidence. The problem of measuring self-confidence at a large extent cut a sorry figure due to the concept of "self" is ambiguous. Smith (1962) identified six areas of self; the first of them is self-confidence. The personality pattern is a multi dimensional structure in which the concept of self is the core or centre of gravity (Breckenridge and Vincent, 1965). Into this, there are many behaviour patterns known as traits which are closely associated with the concept of self. Self confidence is a personality trait (Agnihotri, 1987). Basavanna (1975) defined, "In general terms selfconfidence refers to an individual"s perceived ability to act effectively in a situation to overcome obstacles and to get things go all right." Why it can matter more than IQ" and another book "Working With Emotional Intelligence" (1998). Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand and express your emotions to meet the requirement of day to day living, learning and relating to others" (Cherniss, 2000). A lot of research work has been done to find out the factors of Emotional Intelligence. Sex has been found as one of the dominant factors of Emotional Intelligence. Pandey (2000) and Pandey (2002) found Emotional Intelligence as a gender free construct. Chouhan and Bhatnagar (2003) found female students have higher degree of EQ than their counterparts. But Deo Lal (2003) found male students possess more EQ than their counterparts.
Another factor which is closely related to emotional intelligence is the locality. Kumar (2001) and Singh (2005) found boys and girls of rural area have more emotional intelligence than that of urban area. Self -Confidence is the most important factor in determining emotional intelligence. Cherniss (1998) has suggested high emotionally intelligent leaders possess higher levels of self-confidence. Agnihotri (1987) supports a self confident person perceives himself to be emotionally mature.
A survey of research evidences indicate that sex, locality and selfconfidence are closely associated with student"s emotional intelligence. Thus, most of the studies reported above have been conducted on school going children and others but a very limited attempt has been made to enhance emotional intelligence among teacher trainees. So that it is necessary to undertake a study for identifying the factors that are responsible for the Emotional Intelligence among prospective teachers. The present paper is an effort to find out the factors of Emotional Intelligence. Since emotional problems are felt by different sexes, different localities and different levels of selfconfidence. Thus, the investigator decides to conduct a study to see the

Statement of the Problem
The Problem for the purpose of investigation may be stated as: "Interaction Effect of Sex, Locality and Self -Confidence on Emotional Intelligence among Prospective Teachers."

Emotional Intelligence
It has been defined as "The ability to sense understand value and effectively apply the power and acumens of emotions as a source of human energy, information, trust, creativity and influence" (Cooper and Sawaf, 1997).
Operationally it may be defined as "The score obtained by the Prospective Teachers on Emotional Intelligence Scale developed by Kumar (2000).

Self -Confidence
It is faith in one"s own ability which enables the individual to be dependable, to rely upon his own judgment, not to be submissive and to feel himself adequate to do things he wants to do (Bhawalkar, 1992).
Self-confidence may be defined operationally as, "The score obtained by the Prospective Teachers on Self -Confidence Scale developed by Bhawlkar (1992).

Delimitation of the Study
Keeping in view the limitation of time, resources and energy, the investigation has been delimited both qualitatively and quantitatively as under: Only 100 Prospective Teachers both sexesmale and female belonging to urban and rural localities of Bhagalpur District have been considered for the study.

Objective of the Study
To study the effect of sex, locality and self-confidence and their various interactions on the Emotional Intelligence among Prospective Teachers.

Basic Assumption
i) The Emotional Intelligence Scale can measure the Emotional Intelligence of Prospective Teachers. ii) The Self-Confidence Scale can give information regarding self-confidence of Prospective Teachers.

Hypothesis
To achieve the above mentioned objective, the following hypothesis has been formulated in the present study: There would be significant effect of sex, locality, self-confidence and their various interactions on the Emotional Intelligence among prospective teachers.

METHODOLOGY: Sample
The sample of the present study consists of 100 male and female prospective teachers who have been selected randomly belonging to urban and rural localities of Bhagalpur District (Bihar).  Kumar (2000) has been used in the present study to measure Emotional Intelligence of Prospective Teachers.
ii-Self -Confidence Scale developed by Bhawlkar (1992) has been selected for the study to assess selfconfidence of the Prospective Teachers.

Procedure
The tests have been administered and scored as direction given in the manuals.

Data Organization
Median has been calculated from the scores of selfconfidence and on that basis the sample has been divided into two sub groups. The Calculated median value for selfconfidence is 49, hence, scores 49 and above have been placed in the group of high selfconfident and the scores 48 and below have been treated as the group of low selfconfident.

Statistical Techniques
The independent variables are sex locality and selfconfidence and the dependent variable is emotional intelligence. Each of the independent variables has been differed in two ways. Hence a Factorial Analysis of Variance (2x2x2) has been used to analyze the independent and interactive effects of independent variables on the dependent variable. The present study investigates the interactions among different levels of sex, locality and self-confidence which involved the comparison of more than two means. If ANOVA yields significant "F" Ratio, the"t" test has been used in order to test the significance of the difference between the means of the two groups.  From the above analysis, the main effects of sex and selfconfidence have been found to be significant at .05 and .0l levels of significance, respectively, while the main effects of locality as well as the various interactions have been found to be non-significant. In order to test the levels of self-confidence at which the significant difference occurs, the"t" test has been used. The above table points out that high level self-confidence group differs significantly with low level self-confidence group whereas the difference between high and low selfconfidence groups are found significant.

DISCUSSION
From the analysis of the data presented in the above mentioned tables, it is revealed that the hypothesis "There would be significant effect of Sex, Locality, Self -Confidence and their various interactions on the "Emotional Intelligence" is partially accepted and partially rejected.
From Table -3, it is clear that the hypothesis "There would be significant effect of sex, locality and self-confidence on the Emotional Intelligence among prospective teachers." is accepted in case of the main effect of sex on emotional intelligence. This finding does not find support from the findings of Pandey (2000) and Pandey (2002). It finds support from the findings of Deolal (2000). The hypothesis is also accepted in case of the main effect of selfconfidence on EI supporting the findings of Cherniss (1998) and Agnihotri (1987). Thus the hypothesis is accepted in case of the main effects of sex and selfconfidence and is rejected in case of the main effect of locality as well as the first and second order interactions AXB, BXC, AXC and AXBXC. This means that locality, sex and locality, locality and self-confidence, sex and self -confidence, and sex, locality and self-confidence have no significant effect on Emotional Intelligence among prospective teachers.

CONCLUSION
On the basis of above findings, it is concluded that the main effects of sex and selfconfidence on EI are found to be significant whereas the main effect of locality as well as the various combined interactions of sex and locality, locality and selfconfidence, sex and self -confidence and triple interaction of sex, locality and selfconfidence on Emotional Intelligence are found to be nonsignificant.