Validity of the emotional intelligence scale for use in sport

This study investigated the factorial validity of the 33-item selfratedemotional intelligence scale (eis: schutte et al., 1998) foruse with athletes. in stage 1, content validity of the eis wasassessed by a panel of experts (n = 9). items were evaluated interms of whether they assessed ei related to oneself and eifocused on others. content validity further examined items interms of awareness, regulation, and utilization of emotions.content validity results indicated items describe 6-factors: appraisalof own emotions, regulation of own emotions, utilizationof own emotions, optimism, social skills, and appraisal of othersemotions. results highlighted 13-items which make no directreference to emotional experiences, and therefore, it is questionablewhether such items should be retained. stage 2 tested twocompeting models: a single factor model, which is the typicalway researchers use the eis and the 5-factor model (optimismwas discarded as it become a single-item scale fiolliwng stage 1)identified in stage 1. confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) resultson eis data from 1,681 athletes demonstrated unacceptable fitindices for the 33-item single factor model and acceptable fitindices for the 6-factor model. data were re-analyzed afterremoving the 13-items lacking emotional content, and cfaresults indicate partial support for single factor model, andfurther support for a five-factor model (optimism was discardedas a factor during item removal). despite encouraging results fora reduced item version of the eis, we suggest further validationwork is needed.