INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NURSING STUDENTS' ACADEMIC SUCCESS AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract

Introduction: Academic achievement refers to the extent to which a student, education or institution achieves its short or long-term educational goals. Individuals who successfully predicted academic performance began to wonder about the implications of individual factors for uncertain outcomes. For this reason, emotional intelligence has been a popular topic in higher education. Various research reports show that emotional intelligence is one of the predictors of students' academic success. Purpose: To examine the relationship between emotional-social intelligence (ESI) and self-reported academic achievement in nursing students. Method: A descriptive-comparative approach was used. The research was carried out on 127 nursing students with different academic levels. Two tools, an ESI questionnaire and an academic achievement scale, were used in the study. Results: It was determined that women had a statistically significantly higher mean in their ESI questionnaire scores (p=0.042) and interpersonal competences (p=0.003). There is a positive correlation between the ESI score, its five components, and students' self-reported academic achievement. It is seen that 66.1% of the participants were male and the mean (SD) age was 20.7 (2.4) 57.5%>20. It was concluded that the majority of the participants (83.5%) who participated in the research had a high grade point average. Conclusion: The result of this study shows that education planners and academicians should adopt emotional intelligence development courses at high school and university levels. According to the results of the findings, it was determined that there is a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and the academic achievement of nursing students. Nursing educators should conduct ESI development courses that can be taught by experts in the field at the high school and college level, and workshops on strategies for increasing students' ESI. Emotional intelligence should be part of the education plan for students and students should be given the opportunity to work in lab settings to increase their ESI. This study should be repeated in a different setting with a larger sample size.