Emotional Intelligence And Students Academic Achievement In Chemistry

INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Education is more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is one of the most important investments a country can make in its people and its future. Education is also critical to reducing poverty and inequality by equipping students with critical skills and tools to help them better provide for themselves. According to the Value of Education report (2014): a new global consumer research study commissioned by HSBC, more than half (58%) of parents say that paying for a child’s education is the best investment anyone can make and that a good education should help their children to become independent and build a worthwhile career. In other words, education is an important enabler in a competitive and increasingly globalized employment marketplace.
Academic achievement or academic performance is the outcome of education, that is, the extent to which a student has achieved their educational goals. 80% of parents say that paying for a child’s education is the best investment anyone can make and that a good education should help their children to become independent and build a worthwhile career. In other words, education is an important enabler in a competitive and increasingly globalized employment marketplace.
Academic achievement or academic performance is the outcome of education, that is, the extent to which a student has achieved their educational goals. Academic achievement is commonly measured by examinations or continuous assessment. Attaining a high level of academic performance is what every parent or guardian as well as teacher wishes for their children, wards and students respectively. Schools and teachers are generally graded qualitatively based on the academic performance of their students.
Few problems in Nigerian education today rival that of bridging the gap between students who are academically successful and students who are falling behind. Many theories exist on how to effectively educate all our students and to bridge the gap between those who are flourishing and those who are failing. At the center of this problem is the persistent academic underachievement of students especially at the West African Senior Secondary School Examinations (WASSCE) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) Examinations. Academic success at school obviously requires students to meet a certain minimum standard of academic performance with the focus being on standardized measures of academic or cognitive abilities. However, there has been a recent movement to evaluate the non-cognitive factors specific to achievement (Sellers, Chavous & Cooke, 2018)
The 21st century has brought a new view of the more diverse reality of human functioning and we are slowly but surely becoming aware of the need for schools and the society to address the emotional and social aspects of education. Increasingly, researchers’ attention has turned towards the complex role that non-cognitive skills play in facilitating educational achievement (Heckman et al., 2016; Cunha & Heckman, 2017; Borghans & Weel, 2017; Leininger & Kalil, 2017).
We educate students with one main objective in mind: their success. What then is the measure of success? Is it only a strong scientific mind and nothing else? A century of research on general intelligence and cognitive performance has overshadowed the role that other non-cognitive factors may play in academic achievement. There is a consensus among educators that cognitive factors, like grades or scores on intelligence tests, predict student performance. However, many students still fail to live up to their true potential despite their IQ or previous academic performance. Conversely, some students with mediocre grades have managed to complete a college or university education. Both of these examples suggest that other factors, specifically non-cognitive factors may be at work. One of psychology’s open secrets is the relative inability of grades, IQ or examination scores, despite their popular mystique, to predict unerringly who will succeed in life (Goleman, 1996)
With the gathering interest in the non-cognitive (affective) aspects of students’ learning arose the need to study the varied psychological constructs that underpin students learning. Each student presents to the classroom with a unique personality and set of capabilities otherwise known as individual differences; this is because no child has been raised in a vacuum. Students are a product of the primary environment in which they grow and live in, which is chiefly the home. Children’s semi-structured home learning environment transitions into a more structured learning environment when children start school. An awareness of how these psychological constructs impact students’ participation in the learning process and how these constructs help students if at all, achieve their educational goals is pertinent if educators keen about helping students improve academic performance and ultimately attain educational objectives.
Emotional Intelligence is one of such constructs. Simply put, Emotional Intelligence refers to a person’s ability to perceive emotions, assimilate emotion-related feelings, understand the information of those emotions and manage them. Emotional intelligence (EI) as a construct is relatively new (Mayer & Salovey, 1990).
It has often been said that obtaining a good education is the key to being successful in the world. But what determines being successful while in school? While many things may contribute to school achievement, one psychological variable that is often overlooked is locus of control. Locus of control is one of the personality constructs that has attracted many researchers because this construct, particularly among students, is an important element in determining future behavior (in the case of the present study, academic achievement). Locus of control is meaningfully related to several variables associated with academic achievement (Bernstein, Stephan, & Davis, 1979; Dollinger, 2000). In the context of education, locus of control typically refers to how students perceive the causes of their academic success or failure in school. If someone believes that his or her successes and failures are due to factors within their own control, such as effort or ability, then that person is said to have an internal locus of control. On the other hand, if someone believes that his or her successes and failures are due to factors outside of their own control, such as fate or luck, then that person is said to have an external locus of control. Students with an “internal locus of control” generally believe that their success or failure is a result of the effort and hard work they invest in their education. Students with an “external locus of control” generally believe that their successes or failures result from external factors beyond their control, such as luck, fate, circumstance, injustice, bias, or teachers who are unfair, prejudiced, or unskilled.
Whether a student has an internal or external locus of control is thought to have a powerful effect on academic motivation, persistence, and achievement in school. In education, “internals” are considered more likely to work hard in order to learn, progress, and succeed, while “externals” are more likely to believe that working hard is “pointless” because someone or something else is treating them unfairly or holding them back. Students with an external locus of control may also believe that their accomplishments will not be acknowledged or their effort will not result in success. Internals have been found to not only regulate themselves (self-regulation); they can also reinforce themselves (self-reinforcement) and motivate themselves (self-motivation). A student’s internality or externality therefore has a profound impact on his/her academic achievement… Chapter one continues