A STUDY OF EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RELATION TO THEIR GENDER, RESIDENTIAL BACKGROUND AND TYPE OF SCHOOL

Abstract

The present study aims at studying the emotional competence among secondary school students in relation to their gender, residential background and type of school. The data collected from 200 secondary school students from 6 government and 6 private schools of Jammu district selected through stratified random sampling. To assess emotional competence, a standardized tool namely Emotional Competence Scale (ECS) by Dahiya and Gahlawat (2018) has been used. This scale consists of 34 items divided into five dimensions- Self Awareness, Adaptability, Motivation, Empathy, Social Skills. Descriptive Survey Method of research has been adopted for the study. The results of the study showed that the level of emotional competence with respect to five dimensions as well as overall scores on Emotional Competence Scale among secondary school students mainly fall around average. Further, significant differences have been found for mean scores of male and female secondary school students in relation to their Motivation and Social Skills dimensions of Emotional Competence Scale. Furthermore, female secondary school students are found to be more motivated and possess better social skills in comparison to their male counterparts. Moreover, no significant difference has been observed for emotional competence among rural and urban secondary school students on all dimensions of ECS. Additionally, results revealed that students studying in government secondary schools are found to be more self- aware in comparison to students studying in private secondary schools. KEYWORDS: Emotional Competence, Secondary School Students, Gender, Residential Background, Type of School , Motivation, Social Skills, Self- Awareness