Lecturers’ Trait Emotional Intelligence: A Quantitative Study in Sabah, Malaysia

The purpose of this study was to examine lecturers’ trait emotional intelligence in Sabah, Malaysia. Sixty-one lecturers from four private higher education institutions (PHEIs) in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah completed a questionnaire on Google Forms and data were analyzed using SPSS 29.0. Results showed that lecturers tend to possess low to low-average levels of perceived trait emotional intelligence (41 to 68.8 percent). A slightly higher proportion of lecturers tend to bond well with closed ones (73. 8 percent) and be able to adapt to new environments (70.5 percent). The overall mean score was 3.49/5.0 (69.8 percent), again reflecting lecturers’ low-average level of perceived trait emotional intelligence. On the other hand, nonparametric tests revealed nonsignificant differences by way of gender, age, and job experience in perceived trait emotional intelligence. Additionally, Wilcoxon signed rank test based on a hypothesized value of 3.5 showed that all trait emotional intelligence items were significant at p < 0.001, having medians that were significantly different from the test value, and were likely to indicate strong disagreement. In view of the findings, some well-established training programs were recommended to enhance lecturers’ trait emotional intelligence.