Emotional intelligence of teachers and struggling readers: A quantitative study on the relationship between teacher emotional intelligence and reading gains in struggling secondary readers

Purpose. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to examine emotional intelligence theory with the self-reported EQ of high school teachers in Kern County, to predict whether a relationship exists between the EQ of the teacher and student achievement, as measured by the STAR Renaissance Reading Diagnostic for students with a preestablished instructional reading level that falls between the 3.0 and 8.0 band.;Methodology. This was a quantitative research study, which used a correlation and regression research methodology. Fifty-three high school teachers in Kern County were surveyed to determine their EQ and those teachers' student archival data from the district was used to compare their EQ to gains made in reading on the STAR Renaissance Reading Diagnostic.;Findings. Data collected from 53 teachers and 1,643 of the students they taught, produced a number of findings: (a) the relationship between student scores and teacher EQ accounted for 99.3% of the variance in the model; (b) only .7% of the variance could not be explained when considering whether EQ is an important factor to consider when choosing teachers of struggling readers; (c) the domain scores were compared to the IRL2 scores of the students, the variance jumped from 60.2% in Model 2 to 99.4% in Model 3; and (d) when gender and number of years teaching were added to Model 4, it did not change how strong a relationship existed in Model 3.;Conclusions. Because there was a statistically significant relationship between teacher EQ and gains made in struggling secondary readers, it is recommended that school administrators and teachers examine teacher EQ prior to assigning teachers to teach struggling secondary readers.;Recommendations. It is recommended that additional research be performed to determine if the findings from this study can be replicated using different assessments either for personality or for measuring student achievement to determine if those have more of an impact in increasing reading levels and achievement of struggling secondary students.