Impact of emotional intelligence on academic performance

Emotional intelligence (EI) is an important skill in management and leadership, that defines the ability of one person to manage his own emotions and to understanding/empathies with the emotional states of other persons. There are five characteristics of EI: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The goal of our study is to analyze the impact of EI on the academic performance (AP). To achieve this purpose, we used an online questionnaire mainly distributed in 3 universities (The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, University of Bucharest and Politehnica University of Bucharest) and 300 students responded in March 2024. Using JASP software, we determined correlation coefficients between EI, self-assessed AP, and demographic/academic variables. Students with higher social skills have a better contextual performance, and those motivated have a better task performance. PhD students have a better self-awareness than undergraduates and graduates and higher motivation than undergraduates. Male students manage better their emotions than female students. No statistically significant changes of EI components were determined for "fellowship", "success in exams" or "field of study". In conclusion, EI is a relevant impact on AP, but the standard view of performance should be reconsidered.