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Assessing Emotional Intelligence pp 321–344Cite as

New Directions and Alternative Approaches to the Measurement of Emotional Intelligence

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Part of the book series: The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality ((SSHE))

Imagine a test developer struggling with the complex task of creating an assessment tool to measure an exciting new construct desired by educational, industrial/organizational, and clinical psychologists alike. The test developer first turns to the peer-review literature for a definition to act as a basis for this test, but finds instead heated debate and much disagreement. Researchers are using many different approaches to measure this new construct. In addition, the scores associated with these different approaches seem to measure different entities. The dissension about which approach is the most useful or valid leaves the test developer confused over which approach might measure the “real” construct. The measurement of emotional intelligence (EI) is currently at just such a somewhat precarious stage.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by U.S. Army Research Institute (ARI) Contract W91WAW-07-C-0025 to the Educational Testing Service (ETS). We thank Patrick Kyllonen, Don Powers, Matthew Ventura, and Dan Eignor for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript, and Mary Lucas, Jennifer Minsky, and Cris Valkyria for supporting the preparation of this chapter. All statements expressed in this article are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the official opinions or policies of the U.S. government, ARI, or ETS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Benjamin Orchard

  2. University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Carolyn MacCann

  3. Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Essen Area, Germany

    Ralf Schulze

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    Gerald Matthews

  5. Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Emotions, Department of Human Development and Counseling Haifa University, Israel

    Moshe Zeidner

  6. Genos Pty Ltd, Suite 1.11/365 Little Collins Street, MELBOURNE VIC 3000, Australia

    Richard D. Roberts

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Correspondence to Benjamin Orchard .

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    Orchard, B., MacCann, C., Schulze, R., Matthews, G., Zeidner, M., Roberts, R.D. (2009). New Directions and Alternative Approaches to the Measurement of Emotional Intelligence. In: Parker, J., Saklofske, D., Stough, C. (eds) Assessing Emotional Intelligence. The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88370-0_17

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