The purpose of this study was to investigate the general tendency of preservice early childhood teachers'
emotional intelligence, emotional state, and professionalism as perceived by preservice early childhood teachers,
and the impact of emotional intelligence and emotional state on awareness of professionalism. The subjects of
this study were 129 preservice early childhood teachers in Gyeonggido. The subjects completed a questionnaire
assessing their perception of emotional intelligence, emotional state, and professionalism. The collected data were
analyzed by conducting descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlational analysis, and multiple
regression analysis using SPSS 18.0.
The main results were as follows; First, it was found that the preservice early childhood teachers perceived
their emotional intelligence as ‘above average’ in general, and they showed high perception about ‘knowing one's
emotion’ and ‘recognizing emotions in others’ among sub-variables of emotional intelligence. In addition, the
preservice early childhood teachers perceived their positive emotional state as ‘average’, and negative emotional
state as ‘below average’.
Second, it was found that the preservice early childhood teachers perceived their professionalism as ‘above
average’ in general, and they showed high perception about ‘social nesessity’ among sub-variables of
professionalism.
Third, it was found that there were significant positive correlations among the preservice early childhood
teachers' emotional intelligence, positive emotional state, and professionalism in general. In addition, it was
shown that among the sub-variables of emotional factors, ‘positive emotional state’ and ‘emotional utilization’
were meaningful and influential variables on awareness of professionalism.