Emotional intelligence and academic performance of engineering students

Abstract

Professional technical expertise is no longer the main standard by which employers evaluate college graduates. ‘Soft skills’, such as emotional intelligence (EI also referred to as EQ), are viewed as effective ways to distinguish potential high-performance workers. It is posited that high performing students will also exhibit more proficiency at these ‘soft skills’ than students with more modest academic success. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to correlate EI with the academic performance of civil engineering students. A student’s grade point ratio (GPR) is the criterion used in this research to measure academic performance. The hypothesis is that students with high GPRs will score better on measures of EI than other students. Literature reviews found that there is a growing area of research into EI and its relationship with job performance, specifically through the research presented in Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ [Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, Bantam Publishing, London. ISBN 0553375067]. There is a paucity of research, however, linking EI with academic performance in engineering students. There is also little information on the degree to which engineering students have been exposed to the concept of EI or received any training in EI. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between EI and academic performance and examine the potential difference in EI with respect to demographic and experiential characteristics. This research assumed the following principles: (1) there is a relationship between GPR and EI, (2) the relationship can be measured and (3) the participants in this research have anonymity and are guaranteed that their responses are not part of their individual academic evaluations, increasing the respondents’ ability to answer honestly. Through surveys of 141 civil engineering and construction management students from Clemson University and The Citadel, it is suggested that EI increases along with increases in GPR. EI then peaks for the 2.51–3.0 GPR student group. After that, EI decreases as GPR continues to increase. A positive connection was identified between the amount of work experience and higher EI scores. Based on the results of this analysis, this paper proposes increased emphasis on co-op and extracurricular programmes to help students develop their EI skills.