The Role of Physical Education (PE) Teachers' Emotional Intelligence in Their Interpersonal Behaviors with Their Students

The aim of the present study was to investigate the associations between the four dimensions of teachers' ability model of emotional intelligence (EI) and the eight sectors of teacher-student (T-S) interaction from the teacher interpersonal behavior model, in the Greek educational context. Participants were 36 Physical Education (PE) teachers and 683 high school students who responded voluntarily in questionnaires with good psychometric properties. Correlation analyses revealed that only self-emotional appraisal ability dimension of EI correlated significantly with T-S interaction sectors (i.e. positively with helpful/friendly, understanding; negatively with dissatisfied, admonishing and strict). In addition, regression analyses suggested that self-emotional appraisal can positively predict helpful/friendly, understanding, and negatively dissatisfied, admonishing and strict. Results show that teachers' ability to understand and communicate naturally their emotions is of great significance for quality teacher-student interactions, suggesting that fostering this EI quality should be the focus of policy makers aiming to optimize teacher-student interaction and to promote teaching effectiveness.