Longitudinal predictive validity of emotional intelligence on first year medical students perceived stress

Richa Gupta,Nikhilesh Singh,Ramya Kumar

doi:10.1186/s12909-017-0979-z

Abstract

BackgroundEmotional intelligence has been shown to affect academic performance and perceived stress. But conflicting reports suggest that the relationship between academic performance and emotional intelligence may not be straightforward. Hence, this study explored the relationship between emotional intelligence, perceived stress and academic performance.MethodsFirst year medical students were invited to participate in this longitudinal study. At Time 1, before mid-semester examinations, they completed the questionnaires on Schutte’s Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) (n = 213). At Time 2, before pre university examinations, students again completed perceived stress scale questionnaire. (n = 138). Academic performance was reported using summative assessment at both T1 and T2. The relationship between academic performance, emotional intelligence and perceived stress was explored using regression analysis.ResultsNeither PSS nor SEIS were related to academic performance. However, perceived stress was significantly predicted by SEIS both at T1 (r = 0.333, β = 0.149, p < 0.001) as well as T2 (r = 0.240, β = 0.116, p = 0.028). The results were cross-validated at student level both at T1 and at T2.ConclusionMedical students with higher trait emotional intelligence perceived lesser stress. Therefore, it might be prudent to train medical students to increase their emotional intelligence to promote their well-being.

Highlights

Emotional intelligence has been shown to affect academic performance and perceived stress
In light of conflicting reports and lack of literature on predictive validity, we have focused on exploring the effect of emotional intelligence and perceived stress on academic performance in this paper
3.96% of responses at T1 and none at T2 had one missing value. Missing items for both s Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) were replaced by mean values

Summary

Introduction

Emotional intelligence has been shown to affect academic performance and perceived stress. Conflicting reports suggest that the relationship between academic performance and emotional intelligence may not be straightforward. This study explored the relationship between emotional intelligence, perceived stress and academic performance. Studies have reported that students with higher emotional intelligence report lower perceived stress [2, 3]. Perceived stress has been shown to negatively correlate with both cognitive [5] and behavioral [6]. The claim is supported by studies that found that EI contributes to cognitive based performance independent of general intelligence [10]. Studies reporting the positive association of emotional intelligence with academic performance and of emotional intelligence with perceived stress conspicuously lacked cross validation, which questions their predictive validity. Despite the lack of such literature, there has been widespread call of training the health care personnel in improving emotional intelligence [16]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion