LEARNING TO BE PRESENT: A PILOT STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF MINDFULNESS TRAINING ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND RESILIENCE

Traditionally, university education has covered a wide range of conceptual information, not focusing on important socio-emotional competences such as emotional intelligence, mindfulness and resilience. Training on mindfulness techniques is becoming more relevant nowadays, and specially at schools settings. However its implementation in the University context is still scarce. This pilot study aims to explore the benefits of training on mindfulness for increasing emotional intelligence and resilience capacity among university students. The final sample was composed by 21 undergraduated students enrolled in Business and Administration degree. Students voluntarily participated in the pilot study that consisted in 3 sessions of basic mindfulness techniques training. Repeated measures design was employed: questionnaires assessing mindfulness level, emotional intelligence and resilience were administered before (T1) and after (T2) the training sessions. Results show a clear increase in the variable levels after the training session, although this increment was not statistically significant enough. However this means a preliminary step towards a consciousness on the relevance of training on socio-emotional skills in the university. Results as well as limitations of this pilot study will be discussed in further detail.