The relationship between emotional intelligence and speech anxiety

It is seen that the emotions that have long been ignored by the education systems built on teaching cognitive skills have recently started to be emphasized in the education field within the emotional intelligence (EI) approach. This research aimed to identify the relationship between speech anxiety and EI, which is defined as the skill to adapt to life by using emotions in a proper, effective and efficient way. In addition, it was aimed to determine the opinions of middle school students about speech anxiety and to introduce a reliable and valid speech anxiety scale that measures the speech anxiety levels of middle school students to the literature. In the first stage of the research, which was carried out with an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach, a quantitative relational survey model was used, while a qualitative phenomenological design was employed in the second stage. The sample of the research, which was determined through cluster sampling method, consisted of 622 students studying at secondary school in Bitlis city center. In the first stage of the research, the data were collected through the Personal Information Form, the Speech Anxiety Scale (SAS) developed by the researcher, and the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory Youth Version EQ-i: YV adapted to Turkish by Köksal (2007). As a result of the analysis of the data obtained, a negative relationship was identified between EI and speech anxiety. A significant difference was determined between speech anxiety and gender, grade level, mother's education level, father's education level, monthly economic income level, daily TV viewing time, while no significant difference was detected between speech anxiety and the variables of having received preschool education and daily play time with friends. A difference significant was found between EI and the variables other than the variables of receiving pre-school education and father's education level. In the second stage of the research, the opinions of secondary school students about speech anxiety were collected by holding face-to-face interviews through semi-structured interview guide with 15 participants who were determined by typical case sampling was determined from purposeful sampling method. The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed through descriptive analysis methods. It was concluded that awareness about speech anxiety, mental and motivational strategies, displayed in the speech process positively contributed to the participants' efforts to compensate their speech anxiety.