emotional competence

Since beliefs and emotions are involved in teachers’ daily professional life, this case study aimed to reveal the beliefs of pre-service teachers (PST) emotional strategies and the reasons underlying their beliefs during teaching practicum. Six PSTs from three Indonesian universities who conducted teaching practicum in three different school areas participated in this study. Fruitful data were gained from classroom observations, in-depth interviews, and journal entries. The findings reveal that Indonesian PSTs believe designing both a lesson plan and a second one is significant in preparing the classroom situation appropriately for students. These strategies can improve their self-confidence and motivation and help them regulate down emotions to respond to spontaneous incidents. They also believe in cognitive strategies that the students' problems and the teacher's weaknesses provoke the students' misbehavior. To up-positive emotion regulation, they believe in fake strategies showing their excitement and enthusiasm in teaching through verbal and nonverbal cues. However, hiding and avoiding emotions are not suitable due to harmful impacts. Hence, teachers have to unveil their emotions in appropriate situations. Teachers' attention to all students is pivotal for learning and growth. Thus, PSTs' emotional competence must be enhanced, for they have the ability to identify, analyze, regulate, and express emotions in the proper context and situation. The teacher education program must give PSTs full support by including emotional competence as one of the subjects or a part of the course contents to promote positive beliefs on emotion regulation

This study investigated the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based education intervention on enhancing emotional competence and school belonging among high school students. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was employed with a sample of 30 students (15 experimental, 15 control) from a public high school in Iran. The intervention group participated in an 8-week mindfulness training program integrated into their school schedule, while the control group received no such intervention. Standardized scales were used to measure emotional competence and school belonging before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). The results revealed significant improvements in both emotional competence and school belonging for the experimental group compared to the control group (p < 0.05), demonstrating the positive impact of mindfulness practices on students’ emotional and social well-being. The findings are consistent with previous research suggesting that mindfulness fosters emotional regulation, empathy, and a greater sense of connectedness in school settings. This study highlights the value of incorporating mindfulness into educational programs to support students’ psychological and social development. It suggests the potential of mindfulness-based interventions to improve learning environments and recommends further longitudinal and large-scale research to validate and expand upon these findings.