Ei and Academic Achievement

Education and Emotions Research

The idea of emotional intelligence arose in the business community, where it was felt that traditional intelligence measures such as IQ testing were inadequate to explain all forms of intelligence. The idea of emotional intelligence was developed in the works of Daniel Goleman, and other scholars have sought to refine the concept. Frameworks such as those provided by Salovey and Mayer (1990) sought to define the traits of emotional intelligence and differentiate them from the more patterns and systems-based IQ-type intelligence. Indeed, by the mid-1990s, Goleman (1996) wrote that "school success is predicted largely by emotional and social measures," highlighting that scholars of emotion already recognized the value of developing emotional intelligence in order for students to perform better academically. It should not surprise anybody who works in education that emotional intelligence plays a role in success -- how a student handles stress, interacts with peers in a learning environment, and relates to teachers/professors all play a role in influencing his/her success.

The existing body of research has examined the role that emotions play in high school success (Parker, Creque et al., 2004; Marquez et al., 2006), in the transition from high school to university (Parker, Summerfeldt et al., 2004), on the links between EQ and deviant behavior in school (Petrides, et al., 2004). One of the unresolved issues with this field of study is that there are many individual variables that comprise emotional intelligence. Whatever links between emotional intelligence and academic achievement might be found, any one of these variables could conceivably be the primary explanatory factor (Barchard, 2003). Thus, study in this field should begin unravelling individual elements of emotional intelligence to test each facet of EI with respect to its ability to predict academic success.

This research will further explore the link between emotion and academic performance, building on existing research to refine our knowledge about the role that emotions play in learning. This study will focus on one key element of the ability model, as outlined by Salovey and Mayer, of managing emotions. A student will face a variety of stressors in their years of study, and the ability to successfully navigate and manage the variety of positive and negative emotions one encounters may have predictive power in terms of academic success -- otherwise good students can be undermined by poor responses to stress, while intellectually weaker students can outperform their levels if they have the ability to manage stress, and understand how to leverage their emotional selves to optimize their performance.

Purpose

This study will examine the link between one's ability to manage stress and their academic success.

Project Description

This project will study a group of students at the university level. The study will examine the ability of these students to handle stress effectively, and their academic achievement. The study will test a hypothesis that the students who have a better ability to handle stress will perform better on their tests, relative to untimed assignments, than the students who score more poorly on measures of emotional intelligence related to stress.

The project will contribute to the existing body of knowledge about emotional intelligence. One of the benefits of this approach is that by testing the students against themselves in environments with different levels of stress, the influence of other variables such as intelligence can be mitigated. One of the criticisms with many studies about the link between EI and academic achievement is that other contributing factors such as academic intelligence play a significant role in academic achievement, and most studies that draw a correlation between EI and academic achievement are thus unable to draw a causal relationship. By designing a study to better separate stress as the key independent variable, it is hoped that this study will shed better light on whatever causal relationship between this facet of EI and academic achievement may or may not exist. There have been some studies specific to stress (Saklofske, et al., 2012) and this study will build upon such studies.

Further, studies often do not differentiate between courses with grades based mainly on exams and courses with grades based mainly on papers, a lower-stress situation. Those differences can matter in terms of a student's success. Anecdotally, a student who handles stress poorly may be a B student in a course heavily-weighted towards exams but an A student in a course heavily-weighted towards essays. Key to the success of this research will be to refine our understanding of the role that ability to manage negative emotions will play in academic success.

Research Question

The central research question is this: Does a student's ability to handle stress predict his/her academic performance?

Goals and Objectives

At the end of this study, the hypothesis regarding the relationship between a student's ability to handle negative emotions -- in particular stress -- and his/her academic achievement will be better understood. . This study should build on the existing body of knowledge with respect to the links between EI and academic success, the existing body of knowledge about stress' effects on people in general, and where stress management fits on the hierarchy of important issues linking EI and academic achievement. There are several other facets of EI that have been posited to have a strong influence on academic achievement -- Goleman emphasized one's ability to navigate social situations -- so it is important to look at each important facet of EI individually to understand how the total package of EI traits influences academic performance. Thus, this work will play a complementary role in building this understanding of different EI traits and their relationship (or lack thereof ) to academic success.

Methodology and Timelines