Correlation of emotional intelligence with psychological well-being and academic performance in bachelor degree students

Abstract

Introduction: There are numerous studies highlighting the existing relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance; however, most of the tools used to measure emotional intelligence have been conceived and validated for different Mexican populations. So far, there are no studies correlating Psychological Well-Being scale with the Emotional Intelligence profile conceived in Mexico, and having a probable relationship with the academic performance of bachelor degree students.

Objective: to determine the level of correlation between the emotional intelligence and psychological well-being scales and, if there is any, to determine if it can predict student academic performance within the bachelor’s degree.

Method: A cross-sectional, descriptive and observational study was conducted on 90 undergraduate students. The correlations between the scales were calculated using Pearson’s
«r» or Spearman’s rho, as appropriate, and the differences between the means of the scales within the academic performance were compared using the analysis of variance or with the Kruskal-Wallis test.

Results: Emotional intelligence scale yielded a coefficient of alpha reliability of Cronbach 0.82 (95% CI; 0.77-0.87, P=.0001) and psychological well-being of 0.716 (P = .09). A higher emotional intelligence score was associated with a higher score in subjective psychological well-being and in material psychological well-being. In general, findings revealed that a lower subjective psychological well-being had higher mean scores in academic performance (rho=−0.220, P=.03).

Conclusions: It was found that emotional intelligence and well-being psychological scales are strongly correlated, especially within optimism dimensions, achievement and self-esteem regarding the subjective psychological well-being dimension of the psychological well-being. However, it was interesting to note that an increase in academic performance does not appear to be necessarily associated to a higher general emotional intelligence.