Development of personal initiative: impact of an intervention applied to the educational field / Desarrollo de la iniciativa personal: impacto de una intervención aplicada al ámbito educativo

Personal initiative refers to the behaviours that characterize people as being proactive, persistent and self-starting when tackling obstacles that arise as they try to achieve goals. Given the relevance of personal initiative to the educational field, the main aim of this study was to design, implement and evaluate a programme for developing personal initiative in this field. A further objective was to improve a set of variables closely linked to personal initiative. Participants included 160 students aged between 16 and 30 years and enrolled in six centres offering initial vocational training. Of the total sample, 119 students were assigned to the experimental condition and 41 to the control condition. The study’s design was quasi-experimental with a non-equivalent control group. The results indicated that the programme improved the self-starting component of personal initiative and raised the participants’ academic achievement and entrepreneurial attitude. It also had some effect on self-efficacy and on two dimensions of emotional intelligence, namely clarity and regulation.