New Reliability and Validity Evidence of the Emotional Intelligence Scale

Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) is a popular EI measure. Yet, it has been criticized for an unclear factor structure, and its psychometric properties were mainly examined in the Western context. This study was to evaluate its psychometric properties based on 1,724 Hong Kong undergraduate students, including its (a) factor structure, (b) internal consistency, and (c) criterion validity. We compared different factor structures reported in the literature. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results supported a six-factor structure, which is tallied with Salovey and Mayer's EI conceptualization. A multigroup CFA also rendered the structure as gender invariant. The scale was internally consistent with high McDonald's omega coefficients. Significant association between EI and grade point average (GPA) was revealed in the faculties with people-oriented studies. Furthermore, EI was correlated with social, cognitive, and self-growth outcomes and satisfaction of university experience. The study contributes to clarify the factor structure and provides new reliability and validity evidence of the EIS in the Eastern context.