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Aim: To develop an emotional intelligence (EI) test and evaluate its psychometrics for social and healthcare student selection. Design: A cross‐sectional methodological design. Methods: The test was developed based on a systematic review and focus group interviews. Content validity was evaluated with expert panels, and preliminary psychometrics with two pilot studies. Descriptive statistics, correlations and item response theory were used. Data Sources: Search was conducted in six databases 2018. Focus group interviews were conducted with educators and professionals in 2019. Expert panels with doctoral students, researchers and educators were conducted in 2020. Pilot tests with students were conducted 2020–2021. The developed test was administered to 4808 applicants 2021. Results: The test included four subscales. Correlations support the test's theoretical structure. The items were mainly easy. Conclusion: The test assesses EI objectively and comprehensively. The item‐level distractor analysis can be used for further test development. Impacts: Social care and healthcare students engage in clinical practice early in their studies, and these environments can be emotionally challenging. Assessing EI in student selection with adequate test can help the institutions of higher education to select the students with required abilities to succeed in the studies. The assessment of EI during student selection also provides information higher education institutions could use to develop and provide support interventions. The results may also encourage practice placements to include EI elements as learning objective. The results of this study and especially the use of IRT and detailed distractor analysis to evaluate the psychometric properties of EMI‐T can benefit researchers and educators that develop or evaluate objective assessment tools with multiple choice questions. Implications for the profession and/or patient care: Emotional intelligence is important for students to enable professional interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To develop and psychometrically test the Reasoning Skills (ReSki) test assessing undergraduate nursing applicants' reasoning skills for student selection purposes. Design: A methodological cross‐sectional design was applied for the psychometric testing. Methods: The ReSki test was developed as part of a wider electronic entrance examination. The ReSki test included a case followed by three question sections assessing nursing applicants' reasoning skills according to the reasoning process. Item response theory was used for psychometric testing to assess item discrimination, difficulty and pseudoguessing parameters. The ReSki test was taken by 1056 nursing applicants in six Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (28 May 2019). Results: In the development process, the expert evaluations indicated acceptable content validity. In the psychometric testing, the test reliability was supported by item variance, the theoretical structure was supported by the correlation coefficients and the applicant mean performance supported an acceptable overall test difficulty. The item response theory indicated variance between the items' difficulty and discrimination ranges. However, most of the wrong items failed at being functional distractors. Conclusion: The ReSki test is a new and valid objective assessment of undergraduate nursing applicants' reasoning skills. The item response theory provided item‐level information that can be used for further development of the test, especially related to the revisions needed for the distractor items to achieve the desired level of difficulty. Impact: What problem did the study address? The assessment of nursing applicants' reasoning skills is suggested, but there is a lack of admission tools. What were the main findings? The results provided support for the reliability and validity of the ReSki test. Item response theory indicated the need for further item‐level improvement. Where and on whom will the research have an impact? The results may benefit higher education institutions and researchers when developing a test and/or student selection processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined affect during high school students' face‐to‐face collaborative inquiry learning in science, supported by the web‐based software Virtual Baltic Sea Explorer. Self‐reported affective states during the inquiry process in peer groups were related to evaluations of a group's collaboration and performance in three phases of interdisciplinary science inquiry (biology and chemistry). Results indicate that despite high cognitive demands, positive affect prevailed whereas negative affect was infrequent. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the significance of affect on collaboration and group performance. The relationship between affect, collaboration, and the groups' productive outcome revealed that self‐assurance had a significant effect on collaboration and support, intertwined with scientific understanding and group performance. Furthermore, a cross‐lagged analysis showed a reciprocal relation between positive affect, scientific understanding, collaboration, and support. These outcomes contribute to the scarce literature on the nature and importance of affect in the process of face‐to‐face computer‐supported collaborative inquiry and learning in science. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Positive collaboration in groups promotes positive affect.Positive affect is crucial for attitudes and motivation towards science learning.Affect is an important factor in virtual learning environment design, but there is a lack of understanding on occurrence and influence of affect during face‐to‐face virtual learning.What this paper adds: Students report mainly positive affect during virtual science inquiry despite tough task demands and the level of productive group outcome.Positive activating affect prevails throughout collaborative inquiry, whereas negative deactivating affect is subordinate.Joviality and notably self‐assurance has a great impact on collaboration and support, and achievement, whereas feelings of displeasure and insecurity may have negative implications.Implications for practice and/or policy: Self‐assurance promotes collaboration and support and the aim at coconstruction of shared understanding during virtual science inquiry learning.Efforts should be made to enhance positive affect and especially self‐assurance in virtual learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially anxious adults display an interpretation bias toward anticipating threat such as a high probability of audience criticism even in nonthreatening social situations. They may also expect more negative audience reactions to self than to others acknowledging anxiety. Few studies have examined such biases in adolescents. We examined negative and positive metaperceptions (i.e., others' perceived responses) in 13-16-year-old adolescents ( n = 655) with high vs. normal social anxiety in a hypothetical classroom scenario, in which the participants predicted the frequency of negative and positive classmate responses when imagining either themselves (self-referent metaperceptions) or a classmate (other-referent metaperceptions) with visible symptoms of social anxiety as the target persons giving a speech. We assessed social anxiety with the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents and metaperception using the Classroom Questionnaire of Social Anxiety and Interpersonal Cognition. Social anxiety was associated with negative self-referent metaperceptions to a greater degree than with negative other-referent metaperceptions. Compared with adolescents with normal social anxiety, those with high social anxiety (both boys and girls) predicted a broader range of negative classmate responses toward self, as compared with their predictions of negative responses toward a classmate. These group differences were observed specifically with regard to audience's predicted covert negative responses (i.e., negative thoughts and feelings) toward self, indicating that socially anxious adolescents tend to mind-read. Minimal group differences in positive metaperceptions were observed. The results reveal target and content specificity in socially anxious adolescents' negative metaperceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]