Journal of Education in Developing Areas
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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS A PREDICTOR OF SCHOOL ADJUSTMENT AMONG JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA.

ANWURI MERCY CHUKWU, JONATHAN N ONUKWUFOR

Abstract


The study investigated emotional intelligence as a predictor of school adjustment among JSS students in Rivers State, Nigeria. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The study was anchored on Social Learning Theory by Albert Bandura. The study adopted a correlation research design. The population of the study comprised all the 27,386 (13,331 male and 14,055 female) students in the 275 public junior secondary schools in Rivers State. The sample size of the study comprised all the 439 (225 male and 214 female) public junior secondary school students one (JSSI) in the sampled 35 schools and 6 Local Government Areas in Rivers State, Nigeria. The multi-stage sampling approach was adopted using cluster and stratified sampling technique. One adapted and modified non-cognitive instrument titled “Emotional Intelligence Scale” (EIS) developed by Belinda Davies in 2010 and oneself designed instrument titled “School Adjustment Scale” (SAS) was used for the study. Face, content and construct validities were ensured. The reliability coefficients were 0.70 and 0.75 for EIS and SAS respectively. The multiple and linear regression analysis were used to answer the research questions, while Anova associated with multiple regression and t-test with linear regression were used to test the null hypotheses. It was found that there was a significant joint contribution of emotional intelligence (self-regulation, self-awareness, empathy, motivation and social skills ) on school adjustment among JSS students in Rivers State. Emotional intelligence independent prediction showed that self-regulation, self-awareness and social skills significantly predicted school adjustment in secondary schools in Rivers while empathy and motivation do not. It was recommended among others that the school administrators should include emotional intelligence measure as one of the criteria for junior secondary school admission.

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