CARACTERIZACIÓN DE LAS COMPETENCIAS EMOCIONALES DEL ESTUDIANTADO DE UNA UNIVERSIDAD DEL CENTRO SUR DE CHILE

The objective of this research was characterize the emotional competencies of students at a university in south-central Chile. For this purpose, a quantitative research was carried out, whose data were obtained during the year 2023 in a population of Chilean university students. The non-probabilistic sample consisted of 613 students from different careers of a higher education institution in the center-south of Chile. The results show that in the Emotional Awareness dimension the averages are close to 3.8 points, in the regular category. In the disciplinary area of social sciences, the Emotional Regulation dimension is the one that obtains the lowest average, with statistically significant differences (p= 0.001), with respect to the disciplinary areas of education and health. As for the dimensions of Emotional Autonomy and Social Competence, they have a behavior quite close to the highest scores of the instrument, without significant differences between the disciplinary areas, which is positive since according to these findings, students would be able to be guided by their own norms and establish adequate and healthy social relationships. The highest scores are in the dimensions of Emotional Autonomy and Social Competence, which would imply that the students have greater competencies to fend for themselves and to relate to their social groups. In contrast, the dimension least developed by the students is Emotional Regulation, although their average scores are in the regular category, which groups 60% of the cases, which means that there is a pending challenge for the optimal development of this dimension in university education.