A Study of the Relationship Between Students’ Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (EI) has become an important sphere of educational psychology because students’ academic lives involve not only thinking and remembering but also managing anxiety, motivation, frustration, relationships, feedback, and failure. The present article examines the relationship between students’ emotional intelligence and academic achievement through a critical synthesis of established theory and published empirical evidence. It is written as a research article rather than a research report and does not claim a new field dataset. To maintain authenticity, numerical findings are drawn from peer-reviewed meta-analyses and systematic reviews. Major syntheses generally show a positive association between EI and academic performance, although the strength of the relationship varies according to the definition and measurement of EI, educational stage, and the indicator of achievement. MacCann et al. (2020), using 42,529 students, reported an overall association of ρ = .20, with ability EI showing a stronger association than self-rated EI. Sánchez-Álvarez et al. (2020), in secondary education, reported an overall effect of approximately .26 across 44 studies and 19,861 participants. A later systematic review and meta-analysis reported a larger overall correlation of r = .390. The article argues that EI may contribute to academic achievement through emotion regulation, attention control, stress management, motivation, self-regulated learning, constructive use of feedback, and social support. At the same time, academic achievement is multi-determined, and EI should not be treated as a substitute for cognitive ability, prior achievement, study habits, quality of teaching, family resources, or opportunity to learn. The educational value of EI lies in its capacity to support adaptive learning processes and broader student development.