EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS CORRELATES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN ECONOMICS IN ABAKALIKI EDUCATION ZONE OF EBONYI STATE

Abstract

This study was carried out to examine emotional intelligence as a correlate of academic achievement of secondary school students in Economics in Abakaliki education zone of Ebonyi State. One research question and one hypothesis guided the study. The study adopted a correlation research design. A sample of 253 respondent was drawn from a population of 5067 SS2 students offering Economics as a subject from the 20 secondary schools from the population. This was done using simple random sampling technique by balloting with replacement. Two instruments were used in this study: Economic Achievement Test (EAT) and a rating scale. The Economics Achievement Test was used to assess the academic achievement of students in Economics while the rating scale titled Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) was used to collect data on the emotional intelligence of the students. The reliability test of the instruments was established using Cronbach alpha statistics for EIS while Kudder Richardson 20 was used to compute the reliability of EAT with indices of 0.88 and 0.77 obtained for EIS and EAT respectively which indicated that the instrument are reliable for the study. Research question 1 was answered with multiple linear regressions as to measure the degree of relationships existing between the dependent and independent variables. One Way ANOVA was used to test hypothesis 1 at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings indicated that: there is a high joint relationship among emotional intelligence (self awareness, self motivation and social skills) and students’ academic achievement in Economics. It was recommended that; teachers should initiate classroom practices that help students to understand and manage their emotional intelligence in Economics learning situations. Teachers should endeavour to understand the emotional reactions of students to teaching and entire Economics learning environment and identify where intervention may be needed.