EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS PREDICTOR OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: AN IMPLICATION FOR THE EDUCATIONAL MANAGERS

Abstract

The overall development of a society’s personnel is not possible without spotting on the academic intelligence as well as emotional intelligence. The competitive environment of today has always an urge to recruit such employees in the organizations who are intelligent not only in academics but also in their emotions so that they can respond well to the vibrant environment of this century. Measuring emotional intelligence students have gained great momentum due to increased personality and emotional disorders in pupils. The literature confirms a mounting pressure from stakeholders, students, parents and employers to bridge the non-ignorable gap between our graduates’ emotional intelligence and their academic performances. Therefore, this study was designed to assess emotional intelligence as predictor of academic achievement among university student according to GOLEMAN S model of emotional intelligence (1995). A survey was conducted to accomplish the objectives of the study. Random sampling techniques were used to select the sample from eight departments of IER (Institute of Education and Research). An adapted questionnaire was used with four dimensions measuring the emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management) comprising 37 statements. The responses of 215 teacher educators were taken through Likert rating scale. Descriptive statistics like frequencies, mean, t-test, independent samples t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation were used to analyze the data. The results of this study showed that the students possess significant emotional intelligence but the correlation between student’s EI and academic achievement is insignificantly negative. This implies that the EI and AA are insignificant and the higher the emotional intelligence the lower is academic achievement and vice versa so this paper proposes that EQ is not ensured with the highest academic grades of students so components of emotional intelligence may be embedded across the curriculum