Future success in our society is closely linked to academic success. If a person’s abilities do not fit into the academic model, they are quickly identified as unsuitable or lacking the means to succeed in the future. However, the relatively recent introduction of emotional and sensory factors in addition to IQ disproves this concept. Recently, researchers have shown that the latter is as important in predicting university success as IQ.
Student achievement plays a vital role in educational institutions as it is often used as a measure of an institution’s performance. Early identification of “at risk” students, combined with preventive measures, can significantly improve their academic performance. Recently, machine learning methods have been widely used for their prediction and early detection.
Success, in general, can be defined as the ability of people to act quantitatively and qualitatively on the basis of a predetermined set of facts and knowledge. Given the importance of academic success to future success, many attempts have been made to find out what factors contribute to success in an academic setting.
Since the introduction of the Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Sensory Quotient (SQ), the importance of emotional factors in academic performance has gained momentum in research. Despite the lack of unanimity among early attempts, more recent opinions have shown that EQ levels can be closely associated with and predict what students can achieve in a college setting.
For example, a group of researchers from Ferdowsi University in Mashhad (Iran) wanted to determine the role of psychometric or rational intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence and emo-sensory intelligence (ESQ) in the academic success of university students. The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
Intelligence, multifaceted definition
At first, intelligence was associated with the cognitive abilities of logic and language, and the first psychometric intelligence test was developed to identify children with potential parenting-related intellectual disabilities. Despite the lack of consensus among scholars on the conceptualization of intelligence, most consider abstract thinking or reasoning, the ability to acquire knowledge, and the ability to solve problems as key elements of intelligence.
However, since Thorndike’s introduction of social intelligence, emotional and social aspects have become integral components of intelligence. This recognition led Bar-On to introduce EQ as the best indicator of success, covering the skills needed to meet the demands of the social environment and overcome life’s challenges.
More recently, lead author Pishgadam and colleagues, in 2020, building on the concept of emotionality, took a combinatorial approach to explain more aspects of intelligence and proposed ESQ as an agreement between EQ and SQ. The idea of emotivity is defined as emotions created by sensory experiences that relativize cognition. Therefore, researchers combine feelings, emotions and cognition to form a single concept and build a bridge between sensory experience and physical reality.
It should be noted that the ESQ postulates that intelligence is the ability to recognize, express, label, monitor, and manage emotions caused by feelings; that is, knowledge and perception are created not only by the intellect; rather, they arise from a mixture of emotions and feelings.
Understand and manage your emotions to succeed
In an attempt to ascertain the relative impact of these components of intelligence on student achievement, the authors asked 212 university students of varying academic levels, including 154 women and 58 men, to complete the Raven Progressive Matrices, the Bar-On Emotional Coefficients Inventory, and the Emo-Sensory Intelligence Scale. The data was then combined with students’ GPAs as a measure of student achievement.
Regarding the relationship between EQ and academic performance, participants’ responses to the Bar-On EQ test showed that students’ overall EQ and its general mood subcomponent are strongly and positively correlated with academic performance and have significant predictive validity. That is, students tend to do better in academia when they can understand and functionally regulate their emotions.
In addition to other non-cognitive factors such as courage, hard work, and attention to detail, emotional intelligence enables students to excel academically. He’s better at regulating anxiety or boredom before exams, better at coping with social problems, and building relationships with teachers—all of these skills increase your chances of academic success.
Schematic representation of the relationship between the three types of intelligence (IQ, EQ and ESQ) and academic achievement (AA). © R. Pichgadam et al. 2022
However, students’ IQ was found to be more strongly associated with their academic performance and could be a better predictor of student achievement compared to other types of intelligence analyzed in this study. It can be concluded that in traditional education systems, such as Iranian, the emphasis is always on the stereotypical understanding of intelligence, which is a representation of cognitive abilities or IQ. This trend is evident in teaching and testing methods that suggest that students with higher IQs are more likely to succeed.
Moreover, it is implied to the authors that other types of intelligence, such as EQ, are still new in the Iranian context and need to be further oriented towards the education system in order for this ability to also develop and further contribute to academic success.