A Study on Emotional Intelligence Level of University Students in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the concept, which is currently in focus among the general public, practitioners and researchers. It is widely believed by the public that emotional and social competence is as important or even more important than traditional dimension of intellectual ability and personality. Emotional intelligence embraces two aspects of intelligence: Understanding yourself, your goals, intentions, responses, behavior and understanding others and their feelings. To lead a successful life, it is important for a person to have Emotional Intelligence. Specifically Emotional intelligence is significant for university students who are to become future leaders, pioneers in education and prominent figures in the world. So it is important to find out the emotional intelligence level among the university students. Therefore the objectives of this research were to identify the level of Emotional Intelligence among university students and to make suggestions to increase Emotional Intelligence among them. To collect the data, 460 undergraduate university students were surveyed. The statistical population of this research was selected from medical science, engineering science, physical science, biological science, law, arts, commerce and management streams in universities of Kelaniya, Colombo, Sri Jayawardanapura, Moratuwa and Jaffna. These students were selected by using simple random sampling method. Data collected by using a questionnaire. This is a qualitative and quantitative research. Primary and secondary data were used. Data were analyzed by using tables, pie chart and hypothesis. According to the findings of this research, 58% students were in moderate level of EI and need some development of emotional intelligence; 38% students were in low level of EI and need considerable development of their emotional intelligence and 4% percentage of university students possessed to high level of emotional intelligence. Therefore it is important to take steps to increase the Emotional intelligence level of 96% of university students who lack Emotional intelligence such as providing counseling opportunities, programmes to support the emotional stability of them.