Self-Concept and Emotional Competence among Day Students and Boarders: A Comparative Study

The present study was conducted to measure the Self Concept and the Emotional Competencies of adolescents who lived in boarding schools and those who lived at home. A sample of 243 adolescents, both male and female, with age ranging from 13 years to 16 years were given Saraswat's Self Concept Questionnaire and Sharma and Bharadwaj's Emotional Competencies test. The Independent-Samples t-test revealed significant differences on some dimensions of self concept and emotional competencies. Day students and boarders differed significantly on adequate depth of feeling (t=2.678, p<.01); former being higher than latter on this dimension of emotional competence. Male and female adolescents differed significantly on social concept (t=2.28, p<.05), educational self concept (t=2.28, p<.05), and also on adequate expression and control of emotions (t=2.10, p<.05), and ability to function with emotions (t=1.95, p<.05); boys scored higher than girls. The results are discussed in the light of recent findings and schooling methods.