Improving early childhood teachers’ emotional skills supporting children’s academic socio-emotional development

The purpose of this study was to test long-term impact of in-service emotional education on early childhood teachers’ emotional skills, burnout level and their children’s academic achievement and socio-emotional development. A total of 34 teachers, 13 as the treatment group and 21 as the control group, participated in the study. Thirty-three children from the treatment group and 40 children from the control group participated in the study. The teacher participants responded to the Turkish version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Survey and the Turkish version of the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test before emotional skill education as a pre-test; after education as a post-test and; six months later as a follow-up test. Qualitative results revealed long-term positive impact of emotional education on teachers’ emotional regulation skills. Quantitative data support this finding. ANCOVA showed that the children in the treatment group surpluses the ones in the control group in academic achievement.