Teacher’s socio-emotional competency in achieving generic skills of the graduate profile in higher secondary education

Abstract

Changes in family structure, dynamics and growing social demands, the new skills required of teachers and the poor results achieved in the Higher Secondary Education of the Mexican Educational System (INEE, 2012), makes teaching a complex process that increases Teacher emotional tensions (Marchesi, 2008). Therefore, in this paper we seek to investigate the level of development of socio-emotional skills of teachers to contribute to the achievement of learning generic skills of the graduate profile of Secondary Education in Mexico. A mixed methodology was used; in the Quantitative Phase two standardized instruments were used: the Emotional Intelligence Test Mayer-Salovey-Caruso (MSCEIT) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which were applied to 172 secondary educationteachers. In the qualitative phase five teachers with the highest levels and five with the lowest level of socio-emotional competence were interviewed (by results of MSCEIT).In this paper we present the findings of the quantitative inquiry. The study results showed that, in general, teachers have a sufficient ability that allows them the development with some success, that is, the ability to perceive emotions; to access, generate and use emotions to help thinking, and regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth. Also, no diagnostic parameters indicative of burnout syndrome were found by means of MBI.