Exploring Emotional Intelligence in Higher Education: Management Programme Students in Russia

Researches have shown that emotional intelligence (EI) plays a crucial role in university education. Students’ EI affects their motivation to learn, perception of information and academic achievements. Educators’ EI impacts their job satisfaction and sense of self-efficacy. Recent researches take into consideration the EI of learners or educators, but ignore the correlation between them. The paper studies how the EI of one group of educational actors (educators) is interconnected with the performance of other actors (learners) in the same context. This study describes the situation at one university in terms of EI, and presents the results of panel data analysis (N=329) showing the relationship between educators’ EI and students’ academic performance. The findings indicate that the educator’s experience and his/her qualification negatively affect the students’ academic performance. These results could be explained by the assumption that teachers might miss certain mistakes on the part of their students at the beginning of their university careers; however, as educators become more experienced, they require more of their students. A relationship between students’ EI and educators’ EI was not found. It is supposed that even though educators seem to be crucial figures in the educational process, students cooperate with different representative groups at the university. Therefore students’ EI could be influenced not only by educators but also by other actors of the educational process (other students, administrative staff etc.).