Emotional intelligence: Part 1: the development of scales and psychometric testing

This article, the first in a series of four, describes the development of two scales for deductive and inductive measurement of emotional intelligence (EI), based on the literature and the identification of the psychometric properties of the scales. The data collection comprised two parts: (i) a literature search on the subject of emotional intelligence; and (ii) psychometric testing of the scales. The Emotional Intelligence Scale, comprising 23 items, and the Emotional Reactions and Thoughts Scale, containing 25 items, were tested on a sample of 250 postnatal mothers. The response rate was 80%. An explorative factor analysis was used to investigate the construct validity of the underlying dimensions of emotional intelligence and yielded a three-factor solution for the Emotional Intelligence Scale and a four-factor solution for the Emotional Reactions and Thoughts Scale. The internal consistency of the scales was satisfactory. How well the factor solutions fit in clinical practice remains to be validated.