The Relationship of Emotional Quotient and Academic Achievement of Selected College Students

Abstract

In all parts of the world, education has been highly regarded as a powerful tool for the improvement of human life. It is believed that as the human being gains knowledge through his/her education, he/she has more chances of improving the quality of life that he/she can achieve. Education, the process of enriching human minds, has its ultimate goal of producing individuals who are adaptable and capable of reaching their optimum levels of development. Nowadays, a person’s grades in school have been the most comprehensive evidence of how well that person performs academically. It is as though intelligence is based solely on his/her academic achievement and not on anything else. And a person is considered intelligent if he/she excels, in his academic achievement as manifested by high grades. A person is also considered smart if he/she belongs to the honor roll or in the Dean’s list. Qualifications for employment have greatly relied on the academic achievement of the applicants in the belief that higher intelligence based on academic achievement meant better performance on their jobs. In other words, hiring persons of high 1Q (Intelligence Quotient) is predictive of having high-performance employees. Education, specifically college education, as the process by which youth or adolescents are prepared for their future roles, is highly regarded in the society. It seems nowadays, that having a college degree is the ultimate goal of every aspiring youth. From the gathered review of literature, the following domains have been presumed to be the domains of emotional intelligence: (1) self-awareness (2) self regulation (3) motivation (4) empathy and (5) handling relationships (Goleman, 1998). Believing in oneself and the awareness of one’s abilities are both sub-domains of the self awareness index of Goleman's emotional intelligence concept. One’s assessment of self may lead to the formation of competence of the individual as he/she faces the different challenges that may come along specifically those which relate to his/her academic and social life. Therefore, it seems that competence in all aspects of one’s personality is a needed trait among college students in order for them to survive and adapt to the call of university life. These competencies must be developed for these include not just the academic or intellectual but also physical, spiritual, social, and more importantly emotional aspects of a person as well. “Emotional intelligence” was coined by Yale psychologist, Peter Salovey. Relatedly, University of New Hampshire's Professor John Mayer, five years ago described qualities like understanding one’s own feelings, empathy for the feelings of others and “the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living” (Gibbs, 1995). Emotional intelligence is “a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other's emotions. to discriminate among them. and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (Mayer & Salovey, 1993:433). Daniel Goleman (1988) defines emotional intelligence as characteristics of a person such as “self awareness, self-motivation, impulse control and empathy”. TIME magazine defined it as the comprehension of one’s feelings, as well as others” and managing these feelings efficiently. One of the pioneers and the popular studies conducted about emotional intelligence is the marshmallow test (Mischel, 1960) wherein children were instructed not to eat the marshmallow on the table until the researcher comes back from his errand. Some of them ate the marshmallow while some really waited. These children were tracked later on in life. A survey showed that the children who gave into temptation early on were more likely to be lonely, easily frustrated and stubborn. Long before the term “emotional intelligence” came into use, several researchers investigated dimensions of emotional intelligence (El) through the measurement of related concepts, such as social skills, interpersonal competence, psychological maturity and emotional awareness. Goleman (1995) proposed that low EQ results to anxiety and depression. The child may worry about little things, feel sad, depressed and worse — feel unloved. Peace Center (1995) advocated that children with high emotional skills or sensitivity to the needs of other people are more popular in school because they can deal with other children more favorably, are not shy, show a lot of understanding, and are more friendly. thus, making them well-liked. On the other hand, Compass and Wagner (1987) conducted an Adolescent Perceived Events Scale to determine what major stresses of adolescents do they report having the highest level experience of stress. Manaster (1989) said, “both to the students’ parents and themselves, good academic performance is perceived as “ideal” to every student”. Previously, Manaster (1969) conducted an experiment on looking at the relationship of academic achievement and sense of competence and found out that the two variables are positively correlated. Recently, social scientists have just begun to discover the relationship of El to other phenomena, e.g., leadership (Ashforth and Humprev, 1995), group performance. individual performance, interpersonal/social exchange, managing change, and conducting performance evaluations (Goleman, 1995). This study is about the relationship of emotional quotient and academic achievement of selected college students studying in Mondriaan Aura College located at Subic Bay Freeport, Zambales. The general objective of the research is to determine if there is a significant difference between the emotional intelligence of high academic achievers and low academic achievers. The specific objectives are the following: (1) to find out the levels of emotional intelligence among college students (2) to determine if the high academic achievers possess higher emotional intelligence than low academic achievers and (3) to determine which among the variables of the emotional intelligence influence the academic achievement of the college students the most. The method of research used was the descriptive method of investigation. The descriptive method was adopted since the study is qualitative and was examined primarily through a questionnaire. Please refer to Appendix D for the Emotional Intelligence Scale. This study is comparative because the research aims primarily to compare EQ among the high achievers and low achievers of Mondriaan AURA College, represented by 1* year and 2™ year college students taking up BS Computer Engineering (BSCOE) as high achievers and Associate in Computer Secretarial (ACS) as low achievers. The limitations of the study are the following: (1) sample was very small (2) duration of the study was short (3) differences in family and/or social background and (4) assumption that the courses of the students are the objective measure of their academic achievement The general hypotheses in this study are the following: The null hypothesis (Ho) for this study is that there is no significant difference between the emotional quotient of high academic achievers and low academic achievers among college students. The alternative hypothesis (Ha) for this study is that there is a significant difference between the emotional quotient of high academic achievers and low academic achievers among college students. The t-test was used to determine the differences of the five (5) domains of emotional intelligence, specifically (1) self-awareness (2) self-regulation (30) motivation (4) empathy and (5) handling relationships. Using .05 alpha level of one-tailed hypothesis and 8 as the degree of freedom, the t-critical 1s 1.860. The result of the obtained of the high academic achievers and low academic achievers in the domains of emotional intelligence are the following: (1) self-awareness, .694 (2) motivation, .507 (3) self-regulation, .179 (4) handling relationships, —1.101 and (5) empathy, ~2.31. The results show that there are no significant differences in some of the domains of emotional intelligence such as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation and handling relationships among the respondents specifically the BSCOE and ACS students of Aura College. The results of each domain showed that the t-obtained is within the limits of the t-critical value, which is within +/- 1.860. Furthermore, the result showed a significant difference between the emotional intelligence of high academic achievers and low academic achievers based on the domain, empathy. It is concluded that based from the five domains suggested by Goleman, it is only in the domain of empathy that the high and low academic achievers obtained a significant difference. Furthermore, it is also concluded that the level of emotional intelligence of the respondents are all high. Self-regulation obtained the highest mean among high academic achievers therefore it can be stated that this domain most influence the academic achievement among college students. It is recommended to the institution that (1) students be given seminars and training about harnessing and utilizing one’s emotional intelligence not just focusing on the development of one’s academic achievement (2) students be given opportunities to express themselves in constructive ways with the guidance of their professors (3) parents guide their children, give them quality time and rear them up to be more competent especially as they encounter the stress of college life. Furthermore, it is also recommended to the research field that (1) studies be made in this field, specifically the concept of emotional intelligence (2) more reliable scale be used in the measurement of emotional intelligence (3) longer duration of the study be made and (4) more in-depth study about the backgrounds of the respondents be taken into account.