BULGARIAN SHORT VERSION OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE SCALE (EIS-S)

ABSTRACT The report presents the results from the validation of a short scale for tracing emotional intelligence. The research was done among 204 people. The survey was based on Davies, Lane, Devonport, and Scott’s approach to designing a short scale (2010). With the help of expert assessments of the contents of the items in the original scale of Schutte (1998), Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (33 items), they excluded 13 items due to lack of their relations to emotions, 1 item which the experts did not associate with any of the five subscales, and 7 items which were related to more than one subscale. In our research, the items appearing in more than one subscale were subjected to an empirical check for cross loads. Nineteen items were included in the exploratory factor analysis. The results from the analysis led to a 4-factor solution. The subscales related to the regulation of one’s own emotions and regulation of others’ emotions were united into one factor. The model with four factors and a total number of items – 16 was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. Two items were excluded due to low factor weights. The model shows good fit indexes and a good validity of the construct (CMIN/DF=1.475; CFI=0.961; SRMR=0.054; RMSEA=0.051; PClose=0.012; NFI=0.89; RFI=0.86). The obtained short version of the test for emotional intelligence possesses good psychometric characteristics and can be used for quick diagnostics.