Interrelationships among Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: The Employment of Structural Equation Modeling

The significance of emotions and the cultivation of empathy in development within the realm of education has garnered increasing attention from educators in recent years. Likewise, the emotional intelligence (EI) of educators has emerged as a central factor influencing their effectiveness in educational contexts. Individuals possessing elevated levels of EI demonstrate a heightened awareness of their own emotions as well as those of others, enabling them to regulate their emotions in a manner that elicits desirable behavior from others. This study aimed to present a comprehensive model elucidating the interrelationships among teachers' effectiveness, empathy, and emotional intelligence, employing structural equation modeling (SEM) as the analytical approach. Accordingly, a sample of 201 English teachers at the institutional level from different cities in Iran participated in a quantitative correlational study. The results of Pearson correlation analysis revealed a statistically significant yet weak positive association between Emotional Intelligence and empathy. Moreover, empathy exhibited a positive and significant correlation with teachers' effectiveness. The findings further indicated a moderate positive correlation between Emotional Intelligence and effectiveness. Additionally, a positive path was observed connecting Emotional Intelligence and Empathy. Furthermore, both empathy and EI were found to be predictive of teachers' effectiveness. Hence, it can be concluded that the proposed model had an acceptable fit with the empirical data.