A CORRELATIONAL STUDY TO ASSESS THE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AMONG B.SC (NURSING) FINAL YEAR STUDENTS

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you. The study is titled A correlational study to assess the emotional intelligence and academic performance among B.sc(N) final year students in selected nursing colleges at Madurai.. The objectives were 1)To find out the level of emotional intelligence among the Bsc(N) final year students 2.To assess the level of academic performance among the Bsc(N) final year students 3.To determine the correlation between the emotional intelligence and academic performance among the Bsc(N) final year students 4.To associate the socio demographic variables with the level of emotional intelligence among the Bsc(N) final year students 5.To associate the socio demographic variables with the academic performance among the Bsc(N) final year students. Methodology: A Quantitative approach and descriptive correlational design were used. 62 nursing students were selected by purposive sampling technique and the data were collected using an Emotional intelligence questionnaire. Results: The levels of emotional intelligence for all domains such as Emotional awareness of average EI was 33(53.22%), good EI was 28 (45.16%) and excellent EI was 1 (1.61%). Regarding emotional management, average EI was 23(37.09%), good EI was 29(46.77%) and excellent EI was 10 (16.12%). Social emotional awareness of average EI was 11 (17.74%), good EI was 36 (58.06%) and excellent EI was 15 (24.19%). Relationship management of average EI was 18 (29.03 %), good EI was 33 (53.22%) and excellent EI was 11 (17.74%). Total score of emotional intelligence, in that average EI was 16 (25.80%), good EI was 43(69.35%) and excellent EI was 3 (4.83%). The non-significant p-value infers that there was no involvement among level of emotional intelligence and selected demographic variables except type of personality (x = 8.28, p - value 0.015). There was no involvement among level of emotional intelligence and selected demographic variables except education of father (x= 18.89, p - value 0.002, support system (x = 12.62, p - value 0.001). and type of personality (x = 7.094, p - value 0.007), Conclusions: Nursing students who were more emotionally intelligent performed better in both the continuous assessments and the final professional examination. Therefore, it is possible that emotional skill development may enhance nursing students academic performance.