Emotional Intelligence Training in Physician Assistant Education: Comparing Workshops Alone to Workshops Plus Coaching

Authors

• Mickey Lebowitz, Le Moyne CollegeFollow
• William Holmes, Le Moyne CollegeFollow

ORCID (Optional)

https://orcid.org/ 0009-0003-4039-2635 

Publication Date

4-10-2026

Abstract

Abstract

Introduction

Clinicians and health care students with higher emotional intelligence (EQ) are more likely to experience positive outcomes for themselves and their patients. Given these benefits and EQ’s learnability, teaching EQ to health care students has been suggested. Therefore, we aimed to assess the impact of workshops combined with coaching (W+C) relative to workshops only (WO) on PA students’ EQ, and, as an outcome measure, their feelings of success. Additionally, we investigated whether these impacts depend on students’ baseline EQ.

Method

Using the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Inventory, we retrospectively tracked first- and second-year changes in EQ and success scores of 87 PA students in a 24-month program who during their first year were exposed either to WO or W+C.

Results

Students who experienced W+C had a greater increase in both their total EQ and success scores at the end of their first year compared with the WO group. These first-year changes experienced by the W+C group persisted throughout the second year without additional EQ training and were more pronounced in the 31% of students who had initial EQ scores less than or equal to the normative average of 100. Changes in EQ correlated with changes in felt success, especially for W+C students.

Discussion

Our study suggests that training can increase PA students’ EQ, with the greatest improvements experienced by students whose training supplements workshops with coaching, and by students with lower initial EQ. PA programs may wish to consider integrating EQ training into their curriculums to enhance students’ emotional intelligence and preparation for clinical practice.

DOI

doi: 10.32873/unmc.dc.ihsej.0075

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Lebowitz, Mickey and Holmes, William (2026) "Emotional Intelligence Training in Physician Assistant Education: Comparing Workshops Alone to Workshops Plus Coaching," Innovations in Health Sciences Education Journal: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1 , Article 1.
Available at: https://doi.org/doi: 10.32873/unmc.dc.ihsej.0075