Validation of the Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire (ESCQ) in the Portuguese academic context

The aim of this study is to present a group of validation studies of the Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire (ESCQ, Takšić, 2000, 2001) in the Portuguese academic context, and to compare them with those of the original Croatian version. The Portuguese sample includes 730 students, 381 high-school students (10th and 12th graders) and 349 university students (1st and 2nd graders), from different vocational areas (Scientific and Humanities) to whom the ESCQ was collectively administered during regular academic hours. The results point to good alpha values, similar to those of the original version (> .80), except for the "Ability to manage and regulate emotion" that proved to be less satisfactory (.67). The exploratory factorial structures evidenced 3 factors, explaining together about 30% of the total variance. The confirmatory factorial analysis revealed that the best fitted model has two correlated factors (.55; perception and expression), and integrates only 11 items from the original questionnaire (r2 > .30). The internal validity and the discriminative power of the items proved to be satisfactory. Overall, the ESCQ evidenced satisfactory results in the Portuguese academic context and good perspectives for widespread use in other settings