Every profession has its own professional identity, and the teaching profession is not excluded. A teacher’s professional identity potentially affects their commitment, attitude, and belief in fulfilling the teaching tasks. In this study, the student teachers’ professional identities are investigated along with their emotional intelligence. A quantitative study was conducted to identify the level of emotional intelligence and professional identity as well as the relationship between the two variables. A total of 301 student teachers, under the same intake period (June 2020) from the campuses of Teacher Education Institutions in the Central Zone, Malaysia answered the questionnaire of this study. The analysis revealed that the student teachers had high emotional intelligence and possessed a high level of professional identity. The Spearman correlation coefficient results showed that there was a strong and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and professional identity among student teachers, r(301)=0.614, p=0.000 (p<0.01). This finding provided evidence that emotional intelligence plays an important role in the development of professional identity among student teachers. The findings of this study can also serve as a guide to help the Teacher Education Institutions in this country plan and design relevant curricula and programmes that incorporate emotional intelligence so that the professional identity of student teachers can be more effectively cultivated and promoted.
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