Emotional Intelligence and School Performance - Research Proposal Example

Emotional Intelligence and School Performance s Emotional intelligence is rated as one of the most indispensable facets for advancing school performance, improving behavior and advancing individual’s lives. Increasingly, education institutions have turned to emotional intelligence in their search for systematic and long lasting solutions to their academic performance, management and advancing their social and economic performance. In psychological disciplines, emotional intelligence is defined as the understanding of individual emotions in reference to the existing environment. The study intends to examine and evaluate the influence of emotional intelligence to school performance in different learning institutions. The researcher plans to examine five hundred adolescent students from different learning institutions in the United States of America. The study will rely on dependable and valid instruments in examining the impact of emotional intelligence on academic performance in different disciplines. The study is expected to demonstrate the manner in which emotional intelligence influences the actions of adolescents at different academic levels. Introduction Education is undoubtedly one of the most essential development priorities in the modern world. Consistent school performance is rated as a critical contributor to economic, social, and political development. The main aim of education is to foster human growth and development. This simple purpose of education explains the reason why many researchers and thinkers have invested a lot of resources and time in searching for the most effective way of advancing human development and knowledge. As observed by Abisamra (2010), school performance is entirely a product of instruction and learning experiences. Recent researches have shown learning outcomes as being dependent on several variables which include motivation factors, the society, family, and schools. However, several researchers have identified very close relationship between school performance and emotional intelligence. Over the years, researchers and thinkers have taken different contradictory stands on the relevance of emotional intelligence in school performance. Salovey and Mayer (2009) define emotional intelligence as a subsection of social intelligence that involves the ability to evaluate individual emotions and feelings with a view using the acquired information to guide individuals’ actions and thinking. Emotional intelligence involves the acquired skills and ability to recognize, understands, demonstrate, and express individual feelings and emotion in a productive and a health manner (Low and Nelson, 2004). Emotional intelligence helps individual to develop the capability to understand and value oneself, collaborate and work together with different people to achieve a specified goal, and expand strong relationships as well as development of the capability to deal with daily activities, emerging pressures and demand. The development of an effective emotional intelligence is a vigorous, deliberate, and an engaging procedure. In the state where emotional intelligence forms the main focus in school performance, students and teachers develop human development traits that are interrelated with constructive achievement outcome, personal health as well as goal achievement (Van Voorhis, 2011). Literature Review According to Williams and Sternberg (2008), an emotionally intelligent person is skilled in main areas, regulating, indentifying, understanding, and using emotions in different settings. In normal circumstances, emotional intelligence is composed of five common components; motivating self, self awareness, managing the emerging emotions, identifying feelings and emotions from other people as well self motivation. In recent studies, different psychological thinkers and scholars have endeavored to uncover the relationship that exists between emotional intelligence and other phenomenon in educational settings such as group performance, leadership, academic achievement, and policy making process. Due to its contradictory impact on the education sector, emotional intelligence has over years attracted significant and extensive interest in academic literature. In most cases, emotional development as well as identity development occurs when an individual relate and interact with others in any social setting. Therefore, adolescence and especially in-going teens must learn how to understand and master the emotional skills required in stress management in enhancing academic performance. Emotional intelligence entails the existing relationship skills which helps people to get along with others and their surrounding issues in an effective and successful way. In his theoretical framework, a psychologist by the name Reuven Bar-On described emotional intelligence as a non-cognitive skill that is subdivided into five main section, stress management, interpersonal, intrapersonal, general mood, and adaptability. In his theoretical framework, he talked about the role of personal competence in the development of emotional intelligence. He further divided the required self competencies into five main groups, social awareness, relationship management, social awareness, and self management. According to Reuven Bar-On, a comprehensive inclusion of the main component of emotional intelligence in academic field can trigger heartening school performance (Schickedanz, 2005). Over the last few decades, psychologists have focused their attention on the soft side of individual makeup and differences. Some of the main areas of focus include emotions, feelings, and mood in relation to student performance. Every person’s soft side explains the manner in which students perform their activities with reference to the anticipated task. Aremu (2004) in his study, observed a very close linkage between academic performance and emotional intelligence. He conducted his study in different schools in South Africa and Nigeria. In his findings, Aremu found out that adolescent students who understand their personal emotions have inspiring academic performance compared to students who have low emotional intelligence. Different researchers have also identified different motivations that are essential in promoting emotional intelligence, which is relevant in improving students’ performance. In definition, motivation is the process in which an individual’s behavior is directed and energized in organizational settings. Academic motivation has proved to be exceptionally effective in advancing students’ emotional intelligence. Studies have established high performance to students who have high motivation from different academic facets. Owing to the agreed upon importance of emotional intelligence to school performance, it is an inspirational idea to learn that emotional intelligence can be acquired and improved in different human developmental stages. Emotional intelligence among school going adolescents is in most cases is determined during childhood age. The emotional knowledge learnt at childhood age is typically used to as main guideline in the development of emotional intelligence throughout individual’s life. However, the adolescence stage has proved to be the most effective stage of acquiring emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence among adolescents is measured through the main three methods, from information acquired from individual report, informant measures (information on the people perception to an individual) as well as on the performance or capability measures. Referring to the significance and relevance of emotional intelligence in school performance, the study of its significance is essential. The study intend to shed more light on the applicability of emotional intelligence to modern adolescent students The Objectives of the Study The study intends to evaluate and analyze the relationship between school performance and emotional intelligence in different learning institutions. The researcher also plans to expound on and analyze the accessible positive impact of emotional intelligence to student at different academic levels. Hypothesis By referring to the set objective of the study, the researcher intends to hypothesize the idea that emotional intelligence has a very significant input in advancing school performance. The study has also hypothesized the perception that motivation is a potential determinant for emotional intelligence. Finally, the study intends to hypothesize the assumption that different motivations shape the constructive relationship that exists between school performance and emotional intelligence. Methodology The research will employ mixed methods and techniques including a survey research design. This will help in exploring the relationship between school performance and emotional intelligence. The researcher intends to design the study in a manner that examines the relationship between emotional intelligence and student performance at different levels of education. Interviewing will also be effective and necessary in this study. The researcher also intends to employ quantitative research method to help in the description of the linear relationship between the two variables, student performance and emotional intelligence. The quantitative methodology will also be effective since it will assist in analyzing the data collected through quantitative research method. Population Sample The study will examine in-school adolescents who are in senior school in the United States of America. The researcher intends to sample five hundred students sampled from different public and private schools in the United States of America. The study also intended to employ stratified random sampling technique with a ratio of 3:1 to indentify five hundred students in over three hundred public and private schools. To participate in the study, the participant must be between the age of twelve and seventeen years. The mean age is expected to be 15.9 and a standard deviation of 1.9 Tools In the study, the researcher plans to use questionnaires to collect the essential information. The study will as rely on video tapes to store the collected information. Computers and cameras will also be relevant in the study. Measures The demographic information will be collected from all participants regarding their gender, age, academic class, and school type by the use of demographic data form. Participants will then be expected to complete a questionnaire titled The Student Intelligence Rating Scale (Schutter, Malouf, Hall, Haggerty, DCooper, Golden, and Dorheim, 2008). The questionnaires will be used to evaluate the participants’ emotional intelligence level. The questionnaire will include two sections. The first section will contain personal information of the participant. In this section the participants are expected to tick their age, gender, class and the subject. The second section will include information on intellectual intelligence. This section will include ten questions on emotional intelligence and academic performance. The researcher is also expected to conduct oral interviews to all participants to examine their emotional intelligence levels. To get the students’ official performance, the researcher intends to collect some information from the school marks record book. Procedure The researcher intends to obtain an official permission from the sampled schools. After permission, the researcher will inform the school administrator on the intention of the study and its relevance to the improvement of students’ performance. The participants will also be informed on the purpose of the research and the questions to answer. The researcher will subsequently conduct sampling to indentify the sample to use in the study. The researcher will thereafter distribute the informed consent forms to all participants to fill before participating in the research. The sampled participants will then be issued with questionnaires to fill. Finally, the researcher with collect all the necessary information relating to the participants performance from the score mark book. Data Analysis The researcher intends to make a comparison between the independent and dependent variables in the study. In this case, the dependant variables will be school performance while the dependant variable is expected to be the emotional intelligence. The relationship will be evaluated based on the information collected from participants’ oral interview, information in the questionnaires, and the information collected from the student score book. The information will be tested by using the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient statistics. The data will also be carried out on a 0.05 margin of error. Additionally, the researcher will complete the statistical analyses on the collected qualitative data. References AbiSamra, N. (2010). The relationship between Emotional Intelligent and Academic Achievement in Eleventh Graders. Journals of Research in Education, 6, (61), 89-97. Williams, W. and Sternberg, R. (2008). Group Intelligence. Journals of Intelligence, 12, 351-377 Van Voorhis, F. (2011). Interactive science homework: An experiment in home and school connections. National Association of Secondary School Principals Bulletin, 85(627), 2032. Schutter, N., Malouf, J. Hall, L. Haggerty, Cooper, J. Golden, C. and Dorheim, L. (2008).Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences Journal, 25, 167 – 177. Schickedanz, J. (2005).emotional intelligence and Academic Achievement .Journal of Education, 1, 17-34 Low, G. and Nelson, D.A. (2004).Emotional Intelligence: Effectively bridging the gap between high school and college. Texas Study Magazine for Secondary Education, Spring Edition Aremu, A. (2004). Psychological and Sociological determinant of academic achievement of USA adolescents life Psych a psychologist by the name Reuven Bar-On ologia. International Journal of Psychology in Africa, 12 (2), 149-161. Salovey, P., and Mayer, J.D. (2009).The intelligence of Emotion. Intelligence, 17, 433-442. Appendix Questionnaire Name Age Gender Class 1. What is current academic performance? 2. What are your own strengths and weaknesses? 3. Are you aware of your own emotions? 4. What is the impact of your own emotions to your performance? 5. Are you confidence in your own academic capability 6. How do you explain the impact of your emotional intelligence to your performance? 7. Are you able to adopt to change in your academic environment? 8. Do you value the positive and negative side of difficult people, situation, and events? 9. Are you flexible in overcoming academic obstacles? 10. Do you listen attentively to understand other people feelings and perception? Read More