Development of Emotional Competences in seventh and eighth grade students of primary education

Abstract

Emotional competences are strategies that a person has to identify, understand, express and regulate their own emotions. The development of these competences is relevant in the educational field, since it allows fostering resilience and avoiding an upward trajectory of aggressive behaviors and mental health problems, however, its study in Chilean children has been poorly addressed. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the effect of the implementation of a program for the development of Emotional Competences in students of the second cycle of primary education. The effect of a quasi-experimental design program was evaluated in which 161 seventh and eighth grade students participated. The measurements were made with the scales of Emotional Intelligence and openness to change and emotional knowledge. All the subjects showed an increase of their emotional competences between the pretest and the posttest, independently from their high or low openness to change and emotional knowledge.