Analyzing Social-Emotional Competence of University Students and its Relationship with their Academic Achievement

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Five characteristics of social and emotional competence (SEC) help people understand and control their emotions and feelings. These traits are self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship management, and responsible decision-making. The purpose of this paper was to examine the social-emotional competence of university students and its relationship with their academic achievement. The paper has two objectives (1) to analyze the level of social-emotional competence of university students and (2) to investigate the relationship between social-emotional competence and academic achievement of university students. The current study was a descriptive type. The population of this study was all BS, MS/MPhil, and Ph.D. students studying in Pakistani universities. The convenience sample method was used to select a sample comprising 165 students from the said population. An adapted questionnaire with twenty-five statements under five factors of social-emotional competence was used to collect the data from the university students through the online Google form method. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by obtaining experts' opinions, and reliability was ensured through conducting a pilot study. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated as (?=.85). Statistical tests like mean scores and standard deviation were used to assess the university students' social-emotional competence level. The Pearson r correlational test was used to investigate the relationship between independent and dependent variables. This study discovered that university students had a high level of self-awareness, relationship management, and responsible decision-making, a moderate level of social-awareness, and a low level of self-management. In addition, it was revealed that there had a low positive relationship between social-emotional competence (SEC) and academic achievement. This study recommends that a more conducive learning environment should be provided in universities to enhance students' social-emotional competence.