An Analysis of Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance of Four- Year Integrated B.Ed. Trainees

Abstract

Emotional intelligence plays a vital role in accomplishing the determined objectives of mankind and promoting learning outcomes. For the first time psychologists, Mayer and Salovey coined and used the term “Emotional Intelligence” and defined it as the capacity or ability of an individual for perceiving, processing, knowing and regulating emotional information accurately in an effective manner involving Intra and inter abilities to guide one’s thinking to make certain changes in others. The objectives of the study were to investigate the emotional intelligence scores of four-year integrated B.Ed. Trainees, to compare the emotional intelligence scores of four-year integrated B.Ed. Trainees, in terms of their sex, to compare the academic performance scores of students having high and low emotional intelligence scores and to investigate the relationship between the emotional intelligence scores and academic performance scores of students. To accomplish the objectives of the present study, descriptive survey cum comparative cum correlational methods were used to accomplish the objectives. In the present study, 50 four-year integrated B.Ed. trainees were taken randomly, so the study sample consisted of 150 four-year integrated trainees of Gangadhar Meher University as a whole. To collect data from the sample groups Emotional Intelligence Scale developed by Nicola S. Schutte, John M. Malouff and Navjot Bhullar in 2008 was used, which consists of 33 items in a five-point scale having Cronbach’s alpha reliability of .90 and the test-retest reliability of .78. Along with that, academic performance scores of the last semester of students were taken. The findings of the study revealed that about 6% of students had high emotional intelligence scores and 94% had above-average emotional intelligence scores. The study revealed no significant difference between the emotional intelligence scores of boys and girls. It was also found that the academic achievement scores of students having high emotional intelligence scores were more as compared to the students having low emotional intelligence scores. The study also reported a significant positive correlation between emotional intelligence and the academic performance of students.