Development of Emotional Competence in Social Work Students at Universidad Nacional de Pilar

Abstract

This research aimed to determine the emotional competence of Social Work students at the National University of Pilar. To this end, the Inventory of Emotional Competencies for Adults (ICEA) was used, and a psychometric analysis of the instrument, composed of 23 ordinal items with a five-point Likert scale, was performed on a sample of 79 students. A descriptive analysis was conducted to characterize the response patterns, followed by an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to examine the underlying structure of the data and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to compare the empirical structure with the theoretical pentagonal model. The results indicated that the students develop an integrated emotional structure, which is a valuable indicator for a profession with high psychosocial demands. The coherence and strength of the assessments in dimensions such as Emotional Regulation and Social Competence indicate that the curriculum or the group's experiences have fostered a professional identity where personal well-being and the ability to intervene in social work are not perceived as separate competencies, but rather as a unified technical construct. It is concluded that emotional competence manifests as a fundamental synergistic system, justifying the need to incorporate emotional education as a cross-cutting theme in the university curriculum in order to guarantee the quality of social intervention and the well-being of graduates.