Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement of Primary School Students in Malaysia

Many researchers believe that high emotional intelligence (EQ) is a driving force for excellence in academic achievement. Thus, this study is conducted to identify the extent of contribution of eight EQ domains to academic achievement of primary school students. A total of 918 students in Grades 3 and 4 were involved. The results showed that the level of EQ among primary school students was 73.74%.  The ranking of EQ domain according to the highest performance was spirituality (88.60%), and followed by self-awareness and empathy (77.69%), self-motivation (77.22%), maturity (72.58%), social skills (69.50%), self-confidence (67.68%) and self-regulation (63.42%).  Thus, six from the eight domains (self-motivation, self-regulation, spirituality, self-awareness, empathy and self-confidence) were found to significantly contribute to student's academic achievement. The findings can be used by teachers, counselors, psychologists, academics and those involved in child development to develop EQ-related programs to ensure students' excellence in academic field.