An Experimental Study on the Effectiveness of a Life Skill Enhancement Package in Improving Emotional Maturity Among B.Ed. Students

Abstract

Preparing competent teachers requires more than academic and pedagogical training. Future educators must also possess emotional balance, resilience, and the ability to manage interpersonal and professional challenges effectively. The current investigation focused on assessing whether a structured Life Skill Enhancement Package could contribute to the development of emotional maturity among B.Ed. trainees.

The research was carried out using a quasi-experimental design that involved measuring participants before and after the intervention and comparing them with a control group. The participants were drawn from a population of 324 students enrolled in B.Ed. programmes offered by teacher education institutions in Goa during the academic year 2025–2026. One college was selected through simple random sampling. For the implementation of the intervention, a group of 72 student-teachers was chosen through a purposive sampling procedure and were subsequently assigned randomly to experimental and control groups comprising 36 students each.

Students in the experimental group underwent a structured Life Skill Enhancement Package implemented over a period of six weeks designed around major life skills identified by the World Health Organization, including empathy, self-awareness, communication skills, problem-solving, decision-making, interpersonal relationships, and decision making creative thinking, critical thinking, stress management, and emotional regulation. The participants in the control group followed their routine B.Ed. curriculum and academic activities, without being exposed to the intervention programme. The level of emotional maturity among the participants was assessed using the Emotional Maturity Scale developed by Singh and Bhargava (1990). The collected data were examined using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) to assess the effect of the intervention while adjusting for initial differences among participants.

A statistically significant variation was observed between the adjusted post-intervention emotional maturity scores of the two groups, F(1, 70) = 120.579, p < .05. The obtained partial eta squared value (.633) indicated a substantial effect of the intervention. The results suggest that participation in the Life Skill Enhancement Package led to meaningful improvements in the emotional maturity of B.Ed. students.

The results suggest that teacher education programmes can benefit from the inclusion of organized life skills training aimed at strengthening emotional capabilities and psychosocial preparedness among student-teachers