Table 6.

Review of selected studies on psychometric properties of the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) (Bar-On, 1997a,b).

Citation and Country	Participants (N, age, occupation, gender ratio etc.)	Study Design	Reliability and Validity Evidence	Comment
Bar-On et al. (2000); Dulewicz et al. (2003); and Bar-On (2006) USA and Canada	Non clinical N = 3,831 Gender: 49% male, 51% female. Sample: varied occupations. Age: Age ranged from 16 to 100, with an average age of 34.3 years. Ethnicity: The sample was 79% White, 8% Asian American, 7% African American, 3% Hispanic, and 1% Native American.	The EQ-I has been developed over 17 years by Bar-On. Numerous studies have been conducted by Bar-On testing the self-report measure to establish a valid and reliable tool. Many of his earlier works were not able to be located however information was drawn from a number or sources listed to the left.	Internal consistency: The overall internal consistency was reported at 0.97. Test-retest reliability: the average stability coefficient is 0.85 after 1 month and 0.75 after 4 months. Predictive validity: Bar-On (2006) noted 20 predictive validity studies that have been conducted on a total of 22,971 individuals across 7 counties. The EQ-i measure was found to predict performance in social interactions, at school and work as well as impacts on physical health, psychological health, self-actualization and subjective well-being. The average predictive validity coefficient is 0.59.
Bar-On et al. (2000) Germany	Non clinical N = 167 Sample: Helping professionals including police officers (n = 85) and child care and mental health care workers (n = 81). Gender: 72% male and 28% female. Age: mean age was 33.2 years. Education: the average duration of education was 11.9 years.	Self-assessment questionnaire. Used the earlier version of Bar-On's EQ-i comprising of 133 items translated to German. The study assessed occupational stress and emotional expression within different high stress helping professions, namely the police force and child care and mental health care professions. The authors examined gender, age and occupational differences.	Internal consistency: Alpha coefficients ranged from 0.66 to 0.87 for the scales.	The authors noted that there may be social desirability bias present. Specific organizational stressors were not assessed in the study therefore there organizational or occupational differences may be present. Results may not be generalizable to the wider population due to the limited sample size. Cross-sectional study – a longitudinal study is required to assess causality. Self-report measure—this study relies on subjective self-report data.
Dawda and Hart (2000) Canada	Non clinical N = 243 Sample: University students Gender: 118 men and 125 women Age: Age ranged from 17 to 47 with a mean age of 21.27 years.	Students were recruited via posters advertising an “emotions study.” The aim of the research was to assess the validity and reliability of the EQ-i measure, and was undertaken as part of a larger study examining the association between psychopathy and alexithymia. Participants completed the EQ-i measure, as well as two interview-based rating scales for alexithymia, and a range of self-report measures including alexithymia, personality, affect intensity, depression and psychosomatic complaints.	Internal consistency: Cronbach's alpha for the full scale was 0.96 with coefficients ranging from 0.81 to 0.94 for the factors. Construct validity: The correlations between EI and the additional scales generally were moderate, ranging from 0.32 to 0.83. In general, people with high EQ Total scores had low levels of negative affectivity and high levels of positive affectivity; were conscientious and agreeable; had fewer difficulties identifying and describing feelings; and were not prone to somatic symptomatology or increased somatic symptoms under stress.	One concern was that the Interpersonal scale had relatively small correlations with the other EQ composite scales, as well as a different pattern of convergent and discriminant validities. The authors were unable to explain below-normal EQ-i scores in the study however the low scores should not have much impact on the observed convergent/discriminant validity. For specific aspects of EI, the authors suggest to use the 15 subscale scores instead of the 5 factors, which are generally more internally consistent.

Note some 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.