Examining emotional intelligence differences among nursing students at a college in South Texas

The current study examined the emotional intelligence skills of nursing students at a college in South Texas. Emotional intelligence is the amalgamation of skills and abilities whereby an individual chiefly is able to accurately know one's self, feel valuable, and behave responsibly as a person of worth and dignity. Other characteristics of emotional intelligence include the establishment and maintenance of effective, strong, and healthy relationships at a variety of levels, the ability to form collegiality to work well with others, and the ability to effectively deal with life's demands and pressures (Nelson & Low, 1998). Successful completion of a nursing program as well as successful work performance in the nursing profession is often determined by factors other than cognitive abilities. Therefore, examination of nursing students' emotional intelligence provides a valuable step in establishing a basis for a needs assessment evaluation of a college's program as well as an evaluation of students' cognitive and affective needs. Emotional intelligence profiles were developed for nursing students in the LVN, RN, and LVN-RN Transition Option programs. In addition, a comparison between nursing student comparison between nursing students in the LVN, RN, and LVN-RN Transition Option, programs were developed for the Leadership performance area and the Intrapersonal performance area of the Emotional Skills Assessment Process (ESAP). The Leadership performance area includes comfort skills, empathy skills, decision making skills, and leadership skills whereas the Intrapersonal performance area includes self-esteem skills and stress management skills.;Using a validated questionnaire, the Emotional Skills Assessment Process (ESAP), the collection of data for this study was obtained from students enrolled in the LVN, RN, LVN-RN Transition Option, and Paramedic-RN Transition Option programs from a Level II institution. The nursing student sample population for this study was dependent upon the number of nursing students enrolled in the nursing programs during the Fall 2007 semester and the number of instructors willing to participate in the study. Descriptive statistics and comparison of means (ANCOVA) were applied to examine the emotional intelligence profiles of the sample populations using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).;The study was significant in that it provides valuable data to colleges and universities with similar programs and student body demographics, particularly in the area of developing a needs assessment for an academic program. Data are particularly important as the nursing shortage in Texas brings about increased focus on recruitment and retention of nursing students.