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Recent education development demands early childhood teachers to have an ability in controlling intellectual and emotional intelligence in order to create a new competent generation. Early childhood teachers is a different figure from other teachers who is on call in school institution in education of Indonesia. A job as an early childhood teacher is not an easy job because it not only needs sincerity and patience but also needs a high emotional intelligence in dealing with children as well as remuneration received. Therefore, early childhood teacher should have emotional intelligence on teacher performance improvement. Emotional intelligence of teachers will be better if it is accompanied by a self-efficacy which will improve teachers’ performance. The purpose of this research was to analyze the effect of emotional intelligence on teacher performance and the role of self-efficacy towards the relationship. Research on these variables is interesting for several reasons. First, research on the effect of emotional intelligence and self-efficacy towards performance is still partial. Second, the previous research still examine intellectual intelligence as driving performance while this study attempt to examine on emotional intelligence. Third, research on emotional intelligence and self-efficacy towards performance still needs to develop.

This research took samples from all early childhood teachers at Gunungpati Semarang. The sample used in this study were 14 teachers at early childhood schools with 39 respondents. The sampling technique used was probability sampling with simple random sampling method. Methods of data collection in this study used a questionnaire that measured with the Likert scale 1-5. Data analysis used quantitative data analysis, instrument test, classic assumption test, multiple regression analysis and path analysis. Regression Analysis and Path Analysis is used to test the hypothesis and to see the mediation effect of self-efficacy variables in relationship of emotional intelligence and performance of early childhood teachers.

Based on the research that has been done, it is proved that emotional intelligence has a significant influence on the performance of teachers. This is shown on the t value of 5,166> t table (2,02). This describes that H1 as emotional intelligence is able to influence teacher’s performance significantly or meaningfully. Thus, it can be said that emotional intelligence is an understanding of self and other people’s emotion which influence on the teacher’s performance. Emotional intelligence will have an effect on how teachers in teaching, in touch with colleagues and how their performance is. If teacher has high emotional intelligence, it will influence on the improvement of teacher’s performance. Furthermore, emotional intelligence is proven having important role in improving teachers' self-efficacy. It can be seen from the value of t count 4,224> t table (2,02). Therefore, H2 as emotional intelligence which has positive and significant effect towards self-efficacy is accepted. It means that if emotional intelligence increases, it will influence the increase of self-efficacy. Based on path analysis and calculation of path coefficient value, it can be noticed that t statistic has indirect influence (4,224)> t table (2,02). This describes that teacher who has high emotional intelligence is able to enhance self-confidence in teaching their students to improve teacher’s performance. Self- confidence owning by teachers is able to optimally adjust teacher’s confidence during teacher and learning process. It shows that mediating role of self-efficacy can increase emotional intelligence on the performance of early childhood teachers in Gunungpati Semarang. The results of this study provide additional literature for previous research to examine the relationship of emotional intelligence on the performance of teachers who are mediated by self-efficacy, as it is known that the previous research only examine these factors separately.

 

The research concluded that there is significant effect of emotional intelligence variable on performance of teacher variable through self-efficacy variable as a mediating variable. It means that teachers should be able to control his emotions, both to understand self-emotions and emotions of others, so it will influence in the teaching process and is able to have a good relation with colleagues, as well as supports the performance. When early childhood teachers are just confident only in his ability, it will not be enough to boost the performance. However, when the self-confidence followed by emotional intelligence, it will be able to improve the performance of the early childhood teachers.

 

The results show that it is important for the school (early childhood school in Gunungpati) to organize several activities, such as follows: first schools need to provide counseling to give an understanding of the benefits of emotional intelligence for themselves as well as in understanding the emotional states of others. Second, schools can conduct activities that could increase teacher’s confidence in giving lessons to their students. For teachers, it is expected to be able to manage emotions confident so the performance of teachers in giving lessons to their students can be improved. The results of this study can be used as a reference for further research.