The relationship between emotional intelligence , self-esteem , gender and educational success

Article history: Received January 5, 2016 Received in revised format April 15, 2016 Accepted May 20, 2016 Available online May 26, 2016 Identifying factors that contribute to academic achievement is important. Some studies suggest a direct correlation between emotional intelligence, self-esteem and academic achievement, but others disagree about any direct relationship. This study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence, self-esteem and academic achievement. The sample consists of 300 university students who were selected through random sampling. Bar-on emotional Intelligence questionnaire and self-esteem test pop as well as the mean scores of students were used as academic achievement. To analyze research data, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results of data analysis show that emotional intelligence and self-esteem had no significant relationship with achievement. The findings also show that emotional intelligence was not different between male and female students, but the self-esteem of female students was more than male students. Therefore in considering effective factors in academic achievement just psychological constructs such as emotional intelligence, selfesteem cannot be stressed. © 2016 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Introduction
One of the primary concerns of teachers and education officials is academic achievement and to take possible actions to prevent academic failure (Needham et al., 2004).Every year, academic failure costs governments and individuals significant amount of money (Josephs, 1992).In Iran, academic failure is also an important issue in the educational system and the government spends significant amount of money on educating people and academic failure wastes a portion of this investment.Educational improvement is told to acquired or learned abilities of people on academic subjects which are measured by standard or teacher-based tests (Navidi, 2003).In general, this means the amount of someone's academic learning that can be studied on various categories such as personal differences and school or educational system (Sajjadi, 2009).So attention to the factors that result educational improvement and prevent of its slumping is very important.One of the factors that have been pointed is Emotional Intelligence (EI), which is counted as one of the newest evolution in the field of understanding the connecting between thought and emotion.This phrase was suggested for the first time by Mayer and Solovey (1997).They believed "Emotional Intelligence, as an ability, is capacity of understanding, expressing, knowing, using and managing the emotions of you and others".After them Gardner played an important role in completing the theory of EQ with his new model called "Multiple Intelligences".Based on this model there are two major types of intelligence: Intra-intelligence and Inter-intelligence.
In some studies, EQ has positive correlation (Parkar et al., 2004) with educational success and has negative correlation with manners that a break in educational regulations is like impermissible absence.Therefore, the concept of EQ can be used in training situations (Bar-on, 1997).One of the reasons for drawing attention to EQ is that Emotional Intelligence is a better tool for anticipating societal achievements than the traditional concept of intelligence.Those who are better in emotional abilities have greater societal skills, long-term and steadier relations and also can cope with conflicts easily.Also the children with higher emotional skills have more ability to focus on their problems and solutions, which can raise their cognitive skills as well.The studies and researches of Brackett and Solovey (2004), Petrides et al. (2004), Elias and colleagues (2006), Gumora and Arsenion (2002), Ardehshiri (2005) and Besharat (2007) exhibited the relevancy of Emotional Intelligence and training achievements.Checking the relevancy between Emotional Intelligence and educational success is a challenging area and more researches in this context had contradictory findings.Woitaszewski and Aalsma (2004) carried a research on 39 smart teenagers in 2004 and based on the analysis of the survey they recognized that Emotional Intelligence did not play an important role in societal and educational achievements.Also the investigation results of Gholamalilavasani and colleagues (2007), Lalifaz and Asgari (2008), Koohsar and Bonab (2011) and Sobhani and Yuzbashi (2007) displayed that there was no meaning relationship between Emotional Intelligence and educational achievement.Brody and Hall (2008) performed an investigation on emotional differences between girls and boys and reported that girls better than boys are replaced pitched battles by emotional responses and vice versa, boys because no emphasis on describing their feelings, probably unaware of own emotional state and others.
In this regard, Besharat (2007), reported emotional intelligence levels of female students were more than the excitement level of male students and showed that 67 percent of the variance in emotional intelligence success in girls students and 59 percents were associated with academic success of the boys students.But some researches showed that there was no significant difference in total score of emotional intelligence between girls and boys (See for instance Sajjadi, 2009).Self-esteem is one of the factors in academic achievement.Self-esteem comes from satisfaction person of his / her and sense of self-worth.In other words, the purpose of self-esteem is how people think about themselves (Hosseini et al, 2007).According to Thompson (2003), self-esteem is higher in girls than boys.The results of some studies explain the role and importance of emotional intelligence and self-esteem in academic achievement and accordingly, in the present study we test the following hypotheses: 1-There is a relationship between emotional intelligence and academic achievement.2-There is a relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement.3-There are some differences between male and female students in terms of emotional intelligence.4-There are some differences between male and female students in terms of the rate Self-esteem.

Research method
The recent study is a descriptive -correlation since it examines the relationship between different variables.The statistical society of this research consists of Amirkabir University students (Science and application branch) (N = 1700) in 2015-2016 academic year who were enrolled in undergraduate level.This study selected 300 people between male and female students as the sample group with random method.In the present study to collect data we have used Bar-on Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire and self-esteem pop Questionnaire as well.
Bar-on Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire consists of 90 questions.The test measures 15 components of emotional intelligence in addition to the overall score are considered.In the Bar-on research (1997) test-retest coefficients are reported 85% after a month and 75% after 4 month.In Iran, Zare (2001) achieved 76% the total average coefficient of internal consistency.

Findings
To analyze the data, we have used descriptive statistics (frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (correlation coefficient and test-t) with using the SPSS software.Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations for the variables of emotional intelligence, self-esteem and academic achievement of students in the total sample and in terms of gender.In addition, the implementation of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test has indicated that the data were normally distributed and therefore we use Pearson correlation to study the relationships among different components.

Table 1
Means and standard deviations for the variables of emotional intelligence, self-esteem and academic achievement of students in the total sample and in terms of gender As Table 2 indicates correlation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement is r= 0.035 and between self-esteem and academic achievement correlation is r = 0.079.The data indicates that there are not any significant relationships between emotional intelligence and self-esteem and academic achievement when the level of significance is one percent.

Table 2
Correlation matrix of academic achievement, emotional intelligence, self-concept and self-esteem 3 2 1 1 Academic achievement 1 1 0.035 Emotional intelligence 2 1 0.681* 0.079 Self-esteem 3 Table 3 indicates there are significant relationships between male and female students in the term of emotional intelligence, self-esteem and academic achievement, which means that self-esteem of female is higher than male.Accordingly, we can say that the third hypothesis is not supported by research and fourth one is confirmed.

Table 3
The results of t test in male and female students in terms of emotional intelligence and self-esteem The results of data analysis have shown that emotional intelligence and self-esteem had no significant relationship with achievement.The findings also have shown that emotional intelligence was not different between male and female students, but the self-esteem of female students was more than male students.Therefore in considering effective factors in academic achievement just psychological constructs such as emotional intelligence, self-esteem and so on cannot be stressed.

Conclusion
The aim of this study was to consider relationship between emotional intelligence, self-esteem with academic achievement among female and male students.The first hypothesis test, different between emotional intelligence and academic progress, showed that there was a meaningful relationship between emotional intelligence and academic achievement.The result of this part of the study is consistent with other findings (Gholamalilavasani et al., 2007;Koohsar & Bonab, 2011;Woitaszewski & Aalsma, 2004).However, the results of the study are not consistent with findings of Brackett and Salovey (2004), Petrides et al. (2004), Elias and Arnold (2006) and Gumora and Arsenio (2002).
According to our findings, we can say that the structures related to academic achievement are usually related to revenues especially memory capacities and personal learning while emotional intelligence is more related to success of person in interpersonal communications (Koohsar & Bonab, 2011;Parker et al., 2004) and it seems that academic intelligence has little to do with emotional situation.Many smart people may be nervous in front of natures and nervous tick and the people with high IQ may face several challenges.Emotional intelligence can be a predictor of success, Emotional intelligence cannot be considered the only measure of academic achievement and many factors influence on academic progress.
The results of testing the second hypothesis test, relationship between self-esteem and academic progress, showed no relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement.In explaining the findings of this study one may note the impact of the instruments used in this study.
Previous studies have confirmed the relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement, from self-esteem test (cooper-smith) while for the study of self-esteem in this paper we have used poop.In addition, probably the homogeneity of the sample group had been involved in a significant relationship between self-esteem and academic progress.
In testing the third hypothesis, difference between male and female students in emotional scales, the results have shown a significant difference between men and women in the overall score of emotional intelligence.The finding is consistent with results of Sajjadi (2009), Aghajani et al. (2008), Dibajnia (2005) and Zare (2001).This research also showed that although there was no significant difference in the overall score of emotional intelligence, women in the state of happiness, interpersonal relations, impulse control, responsibility and empathy have more scores.
The results of testing the fourth hypothesis, differences in self-esteem between male and female students, have shown that male and female students were significantly different in terms of self-esteem.
In conclusion it can be said that today, many researchers believe that if a person is emotionally powerful he/she may better face with the challenges of his/her life and we can say that emotion powers us in determining an appropriate emotional responses in the face of everyday events, expanding the scope of insight and positive attitude about the events.