The Relationship Between Social-Emotional Learning Skills and Learning Motivation Among University Students: Exploring the Roles of Emotional Intelligence and Emotion Regulation

This study examined the relationships among university students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) skills, emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, and learning motivation, with particular attention to a proposed serial indirect relationship through emotional intelligence and emotion regulation. A cross-sectional correlational design was employed with 372 students from the Faculties of Education and Arts and Sciences at a university in Türkiye, selected through stratified random cluster sampling. Data were analyzed using observed-variable path analysis in AMOS; the specific serial indirect effect in the original theoretical model was additionally estimated with PROCESS using bootstrap confidence intervals. SEL skills were positively related to learning motivation and emotional intelligence, emotional intelligence was positively related to emotion regulation, and emotion regulation was positively related to learning motivation. However, the direct relationships between SEL skills and emotion regulation and between emotional intelligence and learning motivation were not statistically significant. In the original theoretical model, the specific serial indirect relationship from SEL skills to learning motivation through emotional intelligence and emotion regulation was small and not statistically significant (β = 0.036, 95% CI [−0.0003, 0.0750]); therefore, the hypothesized serial indirect relationship was not supported. A post hoc parsimonious model excluding the two nonsignificant direct paths revealed a small but statistically significant serial indirect relationship (β = 0.043, 95% CI [0.005, 0.082]). This exploratory pattern should be interpreted cautiously and requires replication through longitudinal or experimental research. The findings may also inform curriculum developers by identifying social-emotional dimensions that warrant consideration in needs analysis and future curriculum-design and intervention studies in higher education, particularly in teacher education.