DEVELOPING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR EMPOWERING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WELL-BEING: A SYNTHESIS OF THEORY AND PRACTICE

Recently, there is an urgent call to focus on the holistic development of students, including their mentalhealth, in order to decrease the rate of dropouts and improve students academic performance. For this reason and others, there is an increasing interest in promoting students well-being in higher education due to its positive impact on students motivation and engagement. To achieve this, emotional intelligence appears to help students regulate their emotions effectively to face challenging issues that threaten their mental well-being. Taking this into account, this paper aims to analyze the relationship between developing emotional intelligence and students well-being,and to suggest effective strategies to enhance students emotional intelligence at university settings. To meet this aim, the study adopted a systematic review of literaturethat used quantitative and qualitative data analysis to come up with a synthesis of theory and practice.15 peer-reviewed articles were reviewed to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and university students well-being.Thefindings revealed that there is a strong positive relationship between developing emotional intelligence and university students well-beingand thata set of psychosocial and socio-educational factors mediate this relationship.Eventually, universities need to put more efforts into developing students emotional intelligence skills that improve their academic and professional achievement, which empower their mental health. The current study contributes to expanding literature by providing a synthesis of theory and practice on emotional intelligence and students well-being.Additionally, it will have implications for the integration of emotional intelligence development in Moroccan higher education.