Abstract:

Society, in a continual process of transformation, requires of universities that they adjust, adapting the education they offer to comply with the demands of society and the workplace. In addition, this relationship implies that the subject matter of each field of knowledge takes into account the relevant professional profile that lies behind each degree it (Amador, 1996). The process for insertion into the work market has huge implications for young people, determining in part their professional degree and their opportunities for personal development (García-Montalvo and Peiró 2001).
For this reason, the present study has as its main objective to analyze the existing differences among university students of degrees belonging to the fields of science and publicity, in different aspects of the intelligence. Specifically, the aims are related to establishing the profile of socio-emotional competences characteristic of a representative sample of 80 students of the University of Alicante (Spain), 50 students belonging to the degree of publicity and 30 to science. The evaluation instrument used to measure the emotional intelligence of the students has been the scale of the Emotional Quotient (EQ-i) development by Barn-On (1997, 2000) composed by five general main factors that measure a wide range of emotional and social skills: intrapersonal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, adaptation, stress management and general mood, besides including the emotional general quotient.
The results of the analysis between both groups showing that the considered variables, taken in their group, differentiate, in a significant way, the profiles of both groups. These differences can be situated, above all, in the aspects of intrapersonal intelligence and in the factor of stress management. While for the first variable, the students of Publicity are those that, surprisingly, punctuate the highest; for the second variable, the scientists reach higher results.
If we consider that, on the one hand, emotional intelligence skills, related to personal, professional and daily life performance, constitute skill models (Boyatzis, 1999; Boyatzis, Goleman and Rhee, 2000; Hedlund and Sternberg, 2000); on the other hand, emotional intelligence models include a broad range of socio-emotional skills (Mayer, Salovey and Caruso, 2000). Therefore, it becomes evident that defining, assessing and developing these emotional skills is of the highest importance within the context of university education.

Keywords:

Socio-emotional competences, higher education, profesional profile.