The Moderating Effect of Social Support on the Relationship Between Perceived Emotional Intelligence and School Adjustment Among High School Students

Objectives This study aims to examine the moderating effect of social support on the relationship between perceived emotional intelligence and school adjustment among high school students. Methods To this end, a mixed-method survey (online and offline) was conducted with 623 high school students aged 17 to 18 from 16 cities and provinces across the country. For data processing, the Windows SPSS 18.0 program was utilized to perform frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. Interaction effect testing was conducted to prevent issues of multicollinearity, ensuring the validity and reliability of the findings. Results First, it was found that perceived emotional intelligence among high school students has a significant positive effect on school adjustment, and that emotional intelligence has a significant positive effect on social support. Second, the moderating effect of social support on the relationship between emotional intelligence and school adjustment was confirmed. In cases where emotional intelligence is high, the influence of social support appears to be minimal; however, in cases where emotional intelligence is low, higher levels of social support were found to lead to better school adjustment. Conclusions It was confirmed that emotional intelligence has a direct effect on high school students' school adjustment, and the interaction of social support plays an important role in explaining this relationship. Based on these findings, the significance, limitations, and suggestions of this study were discussed.