The Influence of Emotional Intelligence on Academic Achievement in Junior Secondary Students in Batticaloa West zone, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

The emotional intelligence (EI) of the students and their academic achievement (AA) are important in determining effective and valid performance of their achievements in schools. The Objective of this study is to find out the relationship of students’ EI to their AA in secondary school students in urban and rural area in the Batticaloa west zonein Sri Lanka. In this study was a design quasi experimental was used and directed at the population of junior secondary students in the Batticaloa west zone, Batticaloa of Eastern Province in Sri Lanka. Quasi-experimental design was used because it is difficult to randomly assign participants to treatment conditions in a natural setting due to the fact that it is not possible to control the influence of extraneous variables. Sixteen schools of 1C and Type 2 School were selected from this research area. These schools were stratified into urban (5), semi urban (6) and rural (5) schools and 640 students who studied in grade 6 to 9 (junior secondary) were selected at randomly and40 samples were selected from each school. The average age of the students is 13.8 (early adolescent).The schools were randomly assigned to the two treatment conditions (emotional intelligence training techniques) and control group. Questionnaire and achievement test were employed to generate data for the study. The research instruments used to obtain relevant data for this study were; Exploring and Developing Emotional Intelligence Skills Questionnaire and Achievement test (Mathematics, Science and Tamil Language). Reliability was checked by test – retest after two weeks for the EI. The very high correlations obtained reveal the reliability of the instruments of measurement. Two null hypotheses were postulated from objectives and tested at 0.05 level of significant to determine how the influence EI correlates on students’ AA in three main subjects. The data was collected through questionnaire related to the variable. In addition the marks obtained by the students’ of the final examination, from record maintained at school level. Qualitative and quantitative method (mixed method) was used and Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) to used analysis.Finally, as a result of this, the null hypothesis was rejected while the alternative hypothesis which states that there is a significant relationship between academic achievement and emotional intelligence skills was accepted. The result revealed that, the variable EI, that decide AA is directly related to the students. Therefore, the variable EI is that decides the AA of the students in secondary education, and it is clearly evident from the study that students’ EI is affects student’s AA of the performance of the students.