Table 3.

Review of selected studies detailing psychometric properties of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT).

Citation and country	Participants (N, age, occupation, gender ratio etc.)	Study design	Reliability and validity evidence	Comment
Mayer et al. (2002a,b, 2003) Multiple countries, primarily USA sample.	Non clinical N = 2,112 Sample: individuals from academic settings across multiple countries. Age: mean age was 26.25 years. Gender: 58.6% female.	The design was cross sectional: participants completed the MSCEIT. The test was administered via booklet or online. Scoring was based on how well-respondents' answers aligned with an expert sample (volunteer members of the International Society for Research on Emotions).	Internal consistency: Mayer et al. (2002b) reported reliabilities of 0.91 for the full scale, 0.81 for emotional management, 0.77 for emotional understanding, 0.76 for emotional facilitation, and 0.90 for emotional perception. Test-retest reliability: Mayer et al. (2003) reported a test-retest reliability of 86 and a full-test split-half reliability of 0.93.
Brackett and Mayer (2003) USA	Non clinical N = 207 Sample: University students. Gender: 130 female, 77 male. Age: Mean age was 18.93 for females and 19.51 for males.	The study aimed to investigate the convergent, discriminant and incremental validity of the MSCEIT as well as two other EI measures (EQ-i and SREIT). Participants completed a self-assessed questionnaire and were assessed on their psychological well-being, personality, subjective well-being and academic ability.	Internal consistency: The authors did not report values for internal consistent from this study but rather cited the values from Mayer et al. (2002). Validity: The MSCEIT had discriminant validity against well-studied personality and well-being measures. Additionally, after personality and verbal intelligence were held constant, the MSCEIT was predictive of social deviance. MSCEIT scores were also found to relate positively and significantly to psychological well-being (r = 0.28, p < 0.001), agreeableness (r = 0.28, p < 0.001) and openness (r = 0.25, p < 0.001).	The generalizability of the findings to the general working population may be limited due to the student sample.
Rosete and Ciarrochi (2005) Australia	Non clinical N = 41 Sample: Executives from a large Australian Public Service organization Gender: 24 male and 18 female. Age: Age ranged from 27 to 57 with an average age of 42 years. Tenure: 75% of participants had been in the organization for 10 years or more.	Participants were sought from the organization to participate in a career development exercise. Questionnaires were completed via pen or paper or online. Participants completed the MSCEIT (V2.0), along with a measure of personality traits, and a measure of cognitive ability. Leadership effectiveness was assessed using an objective measure of performance and a 360 degree assessment involving each leader's subordinates and direct manager (n = 149).	Internal consistency: The authors did not report values for internal consistency from this study but rather cited the values from Mayer et al. (2002). Construct validity: The study found that scores from the MSCEIT were correlated with cognitive intelligence, specifically verbal IQ (r = 0.336, p < 0.05); performance IQ (r = 0.402, p < 0.05), and full scale IQ (r = 0.430, p < 0.01).	The findings should be generalized with caution due to the small sample size and one industry sampled. Similarly, the executives in this study had significantly higher IQs than the average population which could also limit the generalizability of results.
Ruiz-Aranda et al. (2014) Spain	Non clinical N = 264 Sample: University students from the School of Health and Science—Specifically, students studying nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and chiropody. Gender: All female. Age: Ages ranged from 18 to 50 with a mean age of 21 years.	Participants completed a Spanish version of the MSCEIT along with measures of well-being (life-satisfaction and happiness) and perceived stress.	Internal consistency: Total score Cronbach's alpha was 0.76. Construct validity: Higher EI scores were found to be related to lower levels of perceived stress and higher levels of life satisfaction and happiness.	The sample was made up of exclusively females, which means that the results obtained my not be generalizable to the male population. The authors also suggest the study did not control for personality which may have an impact on the results.

Note two of the studies reviewed in this table utilize student samples. As specified in the inclusion criteria section we targeted non-student samples and only utilized student samples where others were not available or not appropriate.