The relationship between emotional intelligence and self-esteem of the gifted science hight school students

The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and self esteem of the gifted science high school students. The study is conducted in Trabzon, Rize, Ordu, Sinop, Kocaeli, and Ankara Science High Schools, with a sample of 356 ninth grade students. Of those students, 241 are male and 115 are female students. In this study the self-esteem invention was used as a main data collection tolls. Emotional Intelligence Evaluation Scale, originally developed by Hall (1995) and adapted to Turkish by Ergin (2000), The design of the study is descriptive and correlational, and partly causal-comparative. Data analysis of the study is done on SPSS/WINDOWS, with major applications of correlation, t and F statistics, and descriptive. Data screening and evaluations were applied to data before analysis, and all hypotheses were tested at. 05 significance level. The result of the study showed that self-esteem and emotional intelligence and sub- measures of Emotional Intelligence highly correlated. Gender differences are also apparent for self esteem, emotional intelligence in general, and on emotional awareness, being empathetic, controlling relationships, and females score more than males on these measures. Meanwhile, parental attitudes and perceived achievement were also related to high self-esteem and more emotional intelligence. The results are discussed with previous findings and future research directions. VIII