Focusing on Adolescents’ Emotional Awareness: Instrument Validation and Evaluation of a Training Program

Abstract

The purpose of this multiple study is to investigate the effect of a psychoeducational training program on adolescents’ emotional awareness skills as well as adapting an emotional awareness instrument into the Turkish language and context. In this regard, this paper reports the findings from two studies. In Study I, the validity and reliability analyses were conducted to test the generalizability of the emotion awareness scale in a different context. The findings showed that the scale has a six-factor structure. In addition, the reliability of the scale was found satisfactory. In study II, an experimental research design with the randomized pre and post-test control group was conducted with the participation of adolescents. The experimental group attended a seven-session emotional awareness training while the control group attended regular guidance activities in the school. The findings indicated that the students in the experimental group had significantly higher scores of emotional awareness and verbal sharing of emotions, compared with the students in the control group. However, no significant difference was observed for differentiating emotions, not hiding emotions, bodily awareness, attending to others’ emotions, and analyses of emotions. The findings were discussed considering the relevant literature and the cultural characteristics in emotional awareness, and recommendations were presented, accordingly. © 2022, Ozgen Korkmaz. All rights reserved.