Emotional Intelligence in Creative Process: Enhancing Values in KOMSAS Drama

*Corresponding author: Nurul Fasheha Razali Asia Pacific Smart School (APSS), Malaysia; Email: fasha_az88@yahoo.com Abstract: Malaysian National Health and Morbidity Survey (2017) showed that 600,000 children aged five to sixteen in Malaysia were diagnosed with mental health problems. Therefore, current generation need to be equipped with Emotional Intelligence (EI) to control feelings in a more challenging learning process. In line with the 21st century learning skills, creativity, along with values and ethics will be the focus in education. Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) currently encourages educators to incorporate these values into the teaching and learning process to build a better future generation. Drama has been identified as one of the tools in education that can enhance students’ EI. A survey was conducted among 20 teachers who have been teaching Bahasa Malaysia subject for more than 10 years and have been involved in KOMSAS Drama. This study aimed to identify teachers’ understanding on the application of EI and creative process (CP) in KOMSAS drama. Findings showed that majority of teachers know more about EI (100%) than CP (95%). All teachers (100%) understood that EI and CP are important in KOMSAS drama. 70% of the respondents know how to apply EI better as compared to CP (85%) in teaching KOMSAS drama. The process of applying EI (55%) and CP (60%) happened in a planned manner. However, the implementation of these elements is not balanced. One may apply more of EI than CP, or vice versa, and apply them without proper planning. Therefore, there is a need for a module to help teachers incorporate EI and CP in KOMSAS Drama.


Introduction
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is an important element in a human's life which can help a nation drive towards having a first-class mind and soul. EI is an individual's ability to effectively use emotions in their daily life and work to guide their behaviour and thinking. It was first introduced in 1990 by a group of psychologists, including Peter Salovey and John Mayer. Since then, the demands of 21st-century learning require the current generation to equip themselves with EI to control feelings in a more challenging environment (Mohd Faizul, 2017).
The 2017 National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) published by Institute for Public Health, Malaysia (2018) found that suicidal behaviour among adolescents aged 13-17 years showed an increasing trend in which suicidal ideation is 10% higher in 2017 as compared to 7.9% in 2012. The results also stated that school students in Malaysia were suffering from severe mental illness and emotional problems that were also said to be one of its causes. The World Health Organization (WHO) also showed similar report that suicide is among the top 10 causes of death worldwide and the second leading cause of death for people aged between 15 to 29 years (WHO, 2019). Siti Sarawati (2009) stated that, failure to develop EI, to have a clean heart, positive attitude, empathy and understanding of our surroundings have caused adolescents to lack vision, to lose their control and to be vulnerable when provoked. As we grow older, teenagers will have to deal with many life issues including friendship. If these symptoms are not treated early, it can lead to chronic mental illness in future, including the possibility of committing crime and harassment.
Realizing this, Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) currently encourages educators to incorporate EI and Creative Process (CP) into their teaching for a better future generation who can manage oneself and others in terms of feelings, emotions and behaviour. This is also in line with the 21st Century Learning Skills where Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity Skills, along with values and ethics (4Cs, 1V) will be the focus in education (Maszlee Malik,2019).
Drama has been a part of Malaysian education curriculum since the past few years. Drama creates an atmosphere that allows students to learn from each other based on direct interaction. According to Somers (2013), creative dramatics can help enhance students' interpersonal and leadership skills through role plays. Drama is a powerful mode of learning that provides students an opportunity to work collaboratively on a shared project. Students are able to view problems and issues from varying perspectives, thus, raise their own awareness of issues involved. KOMSAS drama has been introduced in the Malaysian classroom that includes dramatic performances that create an atmosphere allowing students to learn from each other based on direct interaction (Lehtonen, Kaasinen, Karjalainen-Väkevä & Toivanen, 2016).
Though educators have been urged to include EI and CP in their teaching, how many teachers understand the concept of EI and CP. Very often, teachers apply these elements without any proper guidelines or planning. Thus, this research aimed to identify teachers' understanding of EI and CP and also to look at the implementation of EI and CP in the teaching of KOMSAS drama.
The research questions of this study are as follows:

Literature Review
According to Goleman (1995), Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to control one's emotions and emotions of others. EI is also a type of social intelligence that is responsible for controlling emotions and to discriminate those emotions to control thoughts and actions (Mayer & Salovey, 1993). In addition, Cherniss (2010) stated that EI is the ability to see, express and manage the emotions of oneself and others. There are four main components of emotional intelligence, namely self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills. According to Goleman (1996), self-awareness means that having a deep understanding of one's emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs and desires. Self-management is more focussed on the skills of managing emotions as well as the ability to deal with life and psychology of oneself in a more controlled manner. Social-awareness refers to knowing other people's views on themselves. Social skills, on the other hand, are related to the leadership of a person where they will find ways to inspire and motivate others.
Appreciation of values among school children is an aspect that is emphasized by Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE). The Malaysian education system is a platform to educate the future generation to become more sensitive to people's diversity such as other people's family background, culture, race and religion. This matter is emphasized in the Malaysian National Philosophy of Education in which appreciation of these values includes spiritual values, humanity and citizenship. The importance of values is also mentioned by Malaysian Ministry of Education (2013) in the Third Shift of the Malaysian Education Development Plan (2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022)(2023)(2024)(2025). The students' ability to appreciate values requires leadership skills, integrity, compassion, fairness and making ethical decisions.
In the 21 st Century learning skills, the importance of values and creativity are embedded as part of its initiatives. Among the skills needed are problem-solving, creativity, analytic thinking, collaboration, communication and ethics. Torrance (1988), defines creativity as a process of formulating, reviewing, evaluating hypotheses in an effort to solve an unknown problem. Creativity also refers to the ability to think in a unique way, by generating extraordinary ideas or combining intertwined ideas in several different ways. In order to understand creativity, four specific dimensions need attention including creative individuals, creative products, creative processes and creative environments (Chua, 2011;Isbell and Raines, 2007).
According to Standards-Based Curriculum and Assessment Standards Documents for Secondary School published in 2017, Malay Literature Component or known as Komponen Sastera (KOMSAS) in an area of Malay Language aimed to strengthen the efficiency of Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian Language) that is the main language in Malaysia. It is introduced at the secondary school level. It also helped to foster interest in reading and appreciation of Malay literature and absorbed knowledge and literary skills. The types of works or genres studied in KOMSAS are novels, short stories, modern poetry (poems), traditional poetry, drama and traditional prose. KOMSAS can be customized according to skills and aspects contained in the current curriculum documents.
Drama has been introduced in the teaching and learning of KOMSAS that supports the formation of individuals, mental development, socioemotional, aesthetic, creativity and self-worth in accordance with the culture and image of the society of this country. Through drama, poetry and novels of the literary text being studied can be presented in the classroom using creative methods (Lehtonen, Kaasinen, Karjalainen-Väkevä and Toivanen, 2016). The use of drama methods in education creates an environment that allows students to learn from each other based on direct interaction. According to Rachael (2013), this learning can be seen through drama in education in British schools as a method or as one of the curriculum programs. However, the implementation of KOMSAS requires teachers to not only master the literary materials well but also must be efficient, wise and confident in their field as well as creative and skillful in utilizing EI and CP to the level of student performance, situation and environment.

Methodology
The study is a quantitative study which involved the analysis of the data from an online questionnaire survey distributed to twenty respondents. The respondents for this study were 20 teachers who have taught Bahasa Malaysia subject at the secondary schools in Petaling district, Selangor, Malaysia. All 20 respondents have been teaching Bahasa Malaysia subject for more than 10 years and have introduced KOMSAS drama in their classroom.
The online questionnaire survey was administered to collect the data from 20 teachers. The survey questions consisted of four sections; (A) demographic information, (B) understanding of emotional intelligence and creative process; (C) teaching method and (D) teaching module. Respondents were required to choose their answers based on a Likert scale ranged from strongly disagree, disagree, agree to strongly agree. The survey aimed to find out the level of teachers' understanding about emotional intelligence (EI), creative process (CP) and current practices in teaching KOMSAS drama.

Demographic Information
Among the 20 respondents, 86.4% were Female teachers and 13.6% were Male teachers. All of them (100%) have more than 10 years teaching experience in Bahasa Malaysia subject. They are all teaching in secondary schools in the area of Petaling disctrict, Selangor.

Understanding of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Creative Process (CP)
Based on Table 1, 90% of respondents agreed that they know what EI is and 10% of respondents answered strongly agree. However, for CP, 15% of the respondents strongly agreed that they know about CP while 80% of respondents only agreed to the statement. There are only 5% of respondent who disagreed that they know what CP is.
70% of respondents strongly agreed and another 30% agreed that elements of EI and CP are important in KOMSAS drama.

Emotional Intelligence and Creative Process in KOMSAS Drama
As seen in the Table 2, 55% of the respondents answered agree and 3% strongly agree that they know how to apply the elements of EI in their teaching. Only 30% of the respondents disagree that they know how to apply the elements of EI in teaching KOMSAS drama. 70% respondents agree that they know how to apply CP in teaching KOMSAS drama, while 15% of respondents did not. 15%, however, stated that they strongly agree that they know how to apply CP in KOMSAS Drama.
70% of the respondents answered agree that they currently applied EI in teaching KOMSAS drama. 20% of the respondents strongly agree that they currently applied EI in teaching KOMSAS drama. Only 10% of the respondents disagree that they currently applied EI in teaching KOMSAS drama.
75% of the respondents answered agree that they currently apply CP in teaching KOMSAS drama. 25% of the respondents strongly agree that they currently apply EI in teaching KOMSAS drama.  Table 3 shows how the respondents applied EI and CP in KOMSAS drama -either in a planned or unplanned manner. The results showed that 45% answered agree and 10% strongly agree that they applied the element of EI into the teaching of KOMSAS drama in a planned manner. Another 45% disagree that they applied the element of EI into the teaching of KOMSAS drama in a planned manner. 40% answered agree and 20% strongly agree that they apply the element of CP into the teaching of KOMSAS drama in a planned manner. Another 40% disagree that they apply the element of EI into the teaching of KOMSAS drama in a planned manner.

The need of teaching modules that incorporates EI and CP in KOMSAS Drama
In Table 4, all teachers (100%) showed that they need a teaching module as a guide in applying EI and CP into KOMSAS Drama. 40% stated that they agree to have the EI teaching module while the majority 60% stated strongly agree. As for teaching module to apply CT process in KOMSAS Drama, 44% stated that they agree while 55% strongly agree.

Discussion
The main aim of this research was to identify teachers' understanding of EI and CP and also to look at how EI and CP have been implemented in teaching KOMSAS drama.
From the results it looked like the majority of teachers know more about EI than CP. Only 5% of respondents do not know what CP is but all of them understood what EI is. This is a very small percentage indeed. Perhaps, over the past 10 years, EI and CP have been included in various in-service trainings. The knowledge on EI and CP has been well exposed to teachers especially when the 21 st Century Learning focuses on the importance of values and creativity. It also proved that teachers are aware of the ideas expressed by the Ministry of Education (MoE) in applying values into the teaching and learning of students.
Majority of the teachers know how to apply EI and CP in teaching KOMSAS drama and are currently applying these two elements in teaching KOMSAS drama. However, results showed that there are a small percentage of teachers who do not know how to apply EI in teaching KOMSAS drama but still go ahead and apply it in teaching KOMSAS drama. This is quite an alarming finding as there is no evidence in telling us whether the results of their teaching contributed to positive outcomes or otherwise. It is more alarming that all 15% of teachers who do not know how to apply CP in teaching KOMSAS drama actually stated that they applied CP in teaching KOMSAS Drama. Perhaps, these teachers were confident in their knowledge on CP due to their teaching experience (over 10 years) on the subject matter. After all, teachers have been trained to plan their lesson in advance so that the teaching and learning process runs smoothly. Though many studies found that teacher's knowledge increases with experience several studies also showed that there are many factors that could hinder the effectiveness of experienced teacher in teaching (Donkoh, 2017).
More than 60% of teachers applied EI and CP in a planned manner. This showed that these teachers followed a specific lesson plan. However, all of the teachers (100%) stated that they need a teaching module as a guide in applying EI and CP into KOMSAS drama. These results showed that in spite of being able to apply EI and CP in KOMSAS drama, teachers still need a teaching module to guide them. This result also indicates that teachers are still confused and unsure of how to plan their lessons by incorporating EI and CP in their teaching. Coincidentally, Zamri (2016) stated that many problems and confusion still exist among teachers regardless of pedagogical aspects or literary knowledge in the implementation process of KOMSAS drama. As we all know, learning modules are teaching materials that are organized systematically and interestingly that include the content of materials, methods and evaluations that can be used independently to achieve the expected competencies (Anwar, 2010). The characteristics of a learning module mentioned earlier could help teachers to execute EI and CP in teaching KOMSAS Drama. Furthermore, Nurul Farhana, Narina, Zakiah & Azlina (2019) also suggested developing a module that can help students in improving their level of emotional intelligence.

Conclusion and Recommendations
From the study conducted, it can be concluded that teachers' understanding of the application of emotional intelligence (EI) and creativity process (CP) in learning is still at a trial and error stage. From the findings of this study, teachers are aware of the importance of EI and CP in KOMSAS Drama. Majority of teachers agreed that they understood what EI and CP are but were still unsure of the implementation of these two elements in their planned lesson. They even suggested a teaching module to help them teach KOMSAS drama.
This research also showed that there is a need to design and develop a module that incorporates EI and CT into the teaching of KOMSAS Drama. The researchers would like to suggest that the teaching module can include the process of emotional intelligence outlined by Goleman (1995) and the process of creativity from Wallas (1926). This teaching module can be used as a guideline and teaching aids in the implementation of the values of EI and CP. There should be an in-depth study in developing the module by considering some other aspects including the learning curriculum that has been outlined by the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MoE). It is hoped that the process of designing and developing the module will get cooperation from other experts, especially those with educational backgrounds on the design and subject matter. Indirectly, with the design and development of a teaching module that incorporates EI and CP in KOMSAS drama, the researchers hope it will help teachers in teaching KOMSAS drama more systematically in future while helping students to boost their emotional well-being and also increase their creativity.