The Role of Trait Emotional Intelligence in Academic Performance: Theoretical Overview and Empirical Update

Emergent Penile Venous Stripping for Treating Adolescent Impotence

INTRODUCTION

Traditional anatomy-based penile venous surgery is deemed inadequate. Based on revolutionary insights into penile vasculature, penile venous stripping (PVS) shows promise in treating adolescent erectile dysfunction (AED). We aimed to report on this novel approach.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective analysis of 223 individuals under 30 diagnosed with veno-occlusive dysfunction (VOD) between 2009 and 2023. Among them, 83 were diagnosed with AED and divided into the PVS (n = 37) and no-surgery (NS, n = 46) groups. All participants had been dissatisfied with conventional therapeutic options. Dual pharmaco-cavernosography was the primary diagnostic modality. PVS involved stripping the deep dorsal vein and two cavernosal veins after securing each emissary's vein with a 6-0 nylon suture. Erection restoration was accessed using the abridged five-item version of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) score system and the erection hardness scale (EHS). Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS 21.0.

RESULTS

There were significant differences (both p < 0.001) between the preoperative and postoperative IIEF-5 scores in the PVS and NS groups (9.8 ± 3.0 vs. 20.4 ± 2.2; 9.9 ± 2.5 vs. 9.5 ± 2.1), as well as in the EHS scores (1.7 ± 0.7 vs. 3.5 ± 0.6 and 1.8 ± 0.5 vs. 1.3 ± 0.4). The satisfaction rate was 87.9% (29/33) in the PVS group and 16.7% (17/41) in the NS group.

CONCLUSIONS

AED can be effectively treated using physiological methods, although larger patient cohorts are needed for validation.

Life satisfaction in emerging adults: The role of emotional and spiritual intelligences

Objectives. The present research had two main objectives. The first was to examine the impact of emotional intelligence and aspects of spiritual intelligence on life satisfaction among emerging adults in high-income countries. The second objective was to study the interactions between the variables. Methods. First, we used predictive analysis to examine the impact of emotional and spiritual intelligences on life satisfaction beyond that accounted for by gender and by anxiety and depression. Second, we studied the interactions between the variables measured by means of decision-tree analysis. Results. Personal meaning production emerged as the primary determining factor of life satisfaction. In addition, the participants with both personal meaning production and emotional intelligence above a certain threshold had the highest average scores on life satisfaction. Conclusions. The results suggest that further research on emerging adults should investigate the critical issue of identity development, specifically regarding the impact of spiritual and emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence, Academic Motivation, and Achievement among Health Science Students in Saudi Arabia: A Self-Deterministic Approach

PURPOSE

This study used a self-deterministic approach to explore the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI), academic motivation (AM), and achievement among health science students.

METHODS

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in three cities of Saudi Arabia (Dammam, Riyadh, and Jeddah). A convenience sample of 450 students was incorporated using the multistage cluster sampling technique. The online survey contained three sections: students' basic data and academic achievement level, the modified Schutte self-report inventory, and the Academic Motivation Scale lowercase.

RESULTS

This study revealed moderate overall scores for EI (57.1%), AM (55.6%), and grade point average (GPA) (57.6%). The overall EI score, its domains, and GPA had significant positive correlations with overall AM and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (p < .01). Amotivation had an insignificant correlation with GPA (p < .05), but it was negatively correlated with EI and its domains (p < .01). Multiple regression analysis proved that EI domains predicted 5.0% of GPA variance; emotions appraisal and expression (β = .02, p = .024), regulation (β = .11, p = .032), and utilization (β = .24, p < .01). EI domains also predicted 26.0% of AM variance; emotions appraisal and expression (β = .11, p = .04), regulation (β = .33, p < .01), and utilization (β = .23, p <.01). Moreover, AM predicted 4.0% of the variance in GPA; intrinsic (β = .25, p = .004) and extrinsic (β = .11, p = .022) motivation. AM also predicted 25.0% of the variance in EI: intrinsic (β = .34, p < .01) and extrinsic motivation (β = .26, p = .026).

CONCLUSION

EI and AM have a bidirectional influence on each other, significantly shaping the GPA of health sciences students in Saudi Arabia, where intrinsic motivation has a predominant role. Thus, promoting students' AM and EI is recommended to foster their academic achievement.

Battling Unawareness of One's Test Performance: Do Practice, Self-Efficacy, and Emotional Intelligence Matter?

The "Dunning-Kruger effect" refers to the tendency of poor performers to overestimate test outcomes. Although a widespread phenomenon, questions exist regarding its source and sensitivity to countermeasures. The present field study aimed to (a) examine whether practice with tests used in previous classes can enhance students' ability to estimate test outcomes, (b) determine the main source of the effect (i.e., is it unawareness of one's readiness or wishful thinking?), and (c) assess the extent to which particular individual differences can be used as predictors of test performance. In this study, participants practiced with old tests and then completed the final exam. Before and after the exam, they predicted their grades and indicated their subjective confidence in the predictions made. Furthermore, participants' emotional intelligence and self-efficacy about their academic abilities were surveyed. Results suggested that poor performers were not unaware of their test preparation, but rather engaged in wishful thinking. In fact, although they overestimated their test grades, their estimates not only improved after completing the final test but also were regarded with little confidence. Overall, estimation bias was a good predictor of students' final test performance, whereas subjective confidence and emotional intelligence only weakly predicted such performance. Thus, if proactive interventions are to be developed for at-risk students, performance-estimation tasks may offer valuable information regarding such students' future performance in a course much more than emotional intelligence and self-efficacy measures.

The Effect of University Students' Emotional Intelligence, Learning Motivation and Self-Efficacy on Their Academic Achievement-Online English Courses

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on education worldwide. The disease first hit China and numerous Chinese cities then started to conduct online courses. Therefore, this study aims to explore the effect of the Shanghai students’ emotional intelligence, learning motivation, and self-efficacy on their academic achievement when they participated in online English classes during the latter phase of the pandemic in China. Furthermore, the research also examines whether the students’ emotional intelligence can influence their academic achievement through the mediation effect of their learning motivation and self-efficacy. Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and the social cognitive Expectancy-Value Model were employed to build the research framework, and the method of structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to conduct the model verification. Ten universities in Shanghai, China were selected for sampling. In total, 450 students were surveyed of which 404 questionnaires were valid. The results show that the students’ emotional intelligence did not directly affect their academic achievement. Nevertheless, the students’ emotional intelligence had a positive effect on their learning motivation and self-efficacy. In addition, mediation analysis showed that the relation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement was sequentially mediated by learning motivation and self-efficacy.

Influence of personality and emotional competences on academic performance: direct and indirect pathways mediated by perceived stress

BACKGROUND

Among the factors influencing academic performance (AP), individual differences at the trait level such as personality and emotional competences (EC) have been found to play a critical role, similarly to state variables such as perceived stress (PS).

Participants And Procedure

The aim of this study was to clarify whether the influence of personality (Big Five) and EC on AP (general point average) is direct and/or mediated via PS. 537 undergraduate students from a French university (112 male and 425 female, Mage = 19.84 years, SDage = 1.74 years, range = 18-30 years; first year: n = 293, 55%; second year: n = 162, 30%, third year: n = 82, 15%) filled out the test battery around three weeks before the final examination.

RESULTS

Path analysis showed that AP was directly predicted by conscientiousness (+), neuroticism (+), extraversion (-) and perceived stress (-), while perceived stress was predicted by neuroticism (+) and by intrapersonal EC (-).

CONCLUSIONS

The results illustrate the robust influence of conscientiousness on AP, while EC was not found to influence AP directly, but indirectly via its effect on PS.

Emotional Intelligence and its Association with Academic Success and Performance in Medical Students

Background

Emotional intelligence (EI) is potentially associated with higher academic performance. However, no study from the Gulf region has previously assessed if EI affects academic success and academic performance in medical students.

Objectives

To examine the relationship between EI and academic success and academic performance in a sample of Saudi Arabian medical students.

Methods

This cross-sectional, questionnaire study included all 4^th-6^th year medical students enrolled at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the academic year 2017-18. Eligible students were invited to complete the self-administered Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test and the Academic Success Inventory for College Students (ASICS) along with a questionnaire eliciting demographic information between January and April 2018. Academic achievement was assessed based on each student's self-reported grade point average in the most recent examination.

Results

Of 377 eligible students, 296 (78%) completed the questionnaires. A significant association was identified between overall EI and ASICS scores (r = 0.197; P < 0.001). EI scores were constant in males and females and the year of study. No statistically significant association was observed between EI and academic success across gender and academic years (P > 0.05 for all values). However, in terms of external motivation and career decidedness by level of study, final-year students had higher scores compared with students in the other two study years (P = 0.02 and P = 0.01, respectively).

Conclusion

This study offers primary data on the impact of EI scores on academic success in medical education, and it identified several factors associated with EI and academic success. The findings of this study suggest that EI and academic success are linked, and that both are vital for increasing academic performance.

The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown Measures on Quality of Life among Italian General Population

The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world in the year 2020 has put a strain on our ability to cope with events and revolutionized our daily habits. On 9 March, Italy was forced to lockdown to prevent the spread of the infection, with measures including the mandatory closure of schools and nonessential activities, travel restrictions, and the obligation to spend entire weeks in the same physical space. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on quality of life (QoL) in a large Italian sample, in order to investigate possible differences in QoL levels related to both demographic and pandemic-specific variables. A total of 2251 Italian adults (1665 women, mainly young and middle adults) were recruited via a snowball sampling strategy. Participants were requested to answer to an online survey, which included demographic and COVID-related information items, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life BREF questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). The results showed statistically significant differences in QoL depending on a number of variables, including sex, area of residence in Italy, and being diagnosed with a medical/psychiatric condition. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess QoL during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, therefore the present findings can offer guidelines regarding which social groups are more vulnerable of a decline in QoL and would benefit of psychological interventions.

Does Emotional Intelligence Have an Impact on Linguistic Competences? A Primary Education Study

The relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and academic achievement has received a lot of attention in the school environment. The objective of this study is to identify which EI components are more related to linguistic competences in primary education. One hundred eighty students between 8 and 11 years of age participated in the study. We administered the BarOn EI Inventory, the intellectual skills test (EFAI) to determine the intellectual abilities, and a test of basic linguistic competences. The results showed that the EI factors of adaptability and interpersonal had the strongest impact on linguistic competences. Specifically, adaptability was the EI component more related to reading comprehension, explaining 13.2% of the reading score’s variance, while adaptability and stress management were the best predictors of writing skills, accounting for 15.4% of the variance of the writing score. These results point to the need to consider emotional competences to help students reach academic success and personal well-being.

Personality, trait EI and coping with COVID 19 measures

The study views the preventive measures undertaken by government to combat COVID 19 as stressor for individuals, and examines how individuals' personal traits including emotional intelligence and personality factors influence their coping strategies. The concept of trait EI is used in this study to understand its relationship with personality factors and their respective effects on the opted outcomes. Coping strategies in this study are categorised into task, emotion and avoidance-oriented coping. The results show that emotional intelligence is significantly related to all coping strategies whereas only certain personality factors make unique variances. When both emotional intelligence and personality are in the same equation, with the latter being controlled, the former shows incremental variance and the influence of personality factors is reduced. Detailed discussion of these findings and implications for policy makers and researchers are highlighted and conclude the paper.

University Mentoring Programmes for Gifted High School Students: Satisfaction of Workshops

This paper analyses the degree of participant (mentees, mentors, and technical-research team) satisfaction with two university mentoring programmes for pre-university students with high intellectual capacities in Spain. Three versions of a Likert-type scale questionnaire were applied (mentees, mentors, and technical-research team), resulting in a total sample of 43 questionnaires from mentors, 314 from mentees, and 43 from the technical-research team in 43 workshops offered by the GuíaMe-AC-UMA Programme; and 27 questionnaires from mentors, 203 from mentees, and 27 from the technical-research team in the 27 workshops offered by the Amentúrate Programme. The results indicate a high level of satisfaction with the development of the workshops offered by both programmes, on the part of all participants. No significant differences were found in terms of thematic area or gender, although there were differences in age. The participation of the three agents involved in this training offer was very successful, and our results supported the findings of previous investigations. More work is required on the transfer and maintenance of the impact that this type of programme can have on young pre-university students with high abilities.

Do Trait Emotional Intelligence and Dispositional Mindfulness Have a Complementary Effect on the Children's and Adolescents' Emotional States?

Mindfulness is both a non-judgmental and present-centered awareness, which has been applied to reduce negative emotions. On the other hand, Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) is the way of how good people perceive their emotional intelligence abilities (perceiving, expressing, understanding, and regulating emotions), which are involved in people's social functioning. This empirical study was designed to analyze whether dispositional mindfulness (DM) and TEI have a potential combined role for children and adolescent's emotional states. In a sample of primary school students (N = 318), age ranged from 8 to 16 years old (M = 11.25, SD = 2.20), participants filled a TEI measure (ESCQ, Emotional skills and competence questionnaire) and two measures of DM (CAMM, Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure and AFQ-Y, Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth). Measures selected included: PANAS (Positive affect and negative affect schedule), White Bear Suppression Inventory (a thought suppression inventory), and STAIC (State-Trait Anxiety for Children). Findings pointed out that TEI measures (labeling and expression, understanding, and managing emotions) were positively and significantly related to positive emotional states (especially, positive affect and balance) and negatively with a lower association with state anxiety. However, DM measures were both negatively and strongly associated with negative emotional states (thought suppression, negative affect, and anxiety). Conclusions indicate that a combined effect of both TEI skills and DM based interventions would be more complete than each one separately for better social functioning of children and teenagers.

A Thematic Analysis of Career Adaptability in Retirees Who Return to Work

Retirement can no longer be conceptualized as disengagement, as the end of a person’s career, as it is in the life-span, life-space theory. Increasingly, retirees are returning to work, in paid, and unpaid positions, in a part-time or full-time capacity, as an act of re-engagement. Vocational psychology theories are yet to adequately conceptualize the phenomenon of retirees’ re-engagement in work. The research reported in this paper is the first attempt to understand re-engagement through the theoretical lens of career construction theory (CCT) and its central construct, career adaptability. The study involved intensive interviews with 22 retirees between the ages of 56 and 78 years (M = 68.24), who had retired no less than 1 year prior to the study. Participants were engaged in a discussion about their reasons for returning to the world of work. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts extracted evidence of the four career adaptability resources: concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. In addition, the influence of family and making a contribution were discerned as important themes. These findings are the first evidence that the CCT and career adaptability provide a new conceptual lens to theorize and conduct research into the phenomenon of retirement.