Background
Emotional intelligence means the «ability» of a person to express, recognize, and manage «emotions» in themselves and others. Self-confidence means seeing oneself as capable, competent, lovable, and unique. Emotional intelligence can be effective in advancing goals for a person. Academic performance is one of the important indicators in student evaluation, which can also measure the extent to which a person has achieved the goal of acquiring knowledge. The aim of this study was to investigate the emotional intelligence of paramedical students of Hamedan University of Medical Sciences and its relationship with their academic performance.
Methods
The present study is a cross-sectional study of correlation. And it was done on 300 students of the School of Medical Sciences, who have passed at least two semesters of their studies and were selected by random sampling. In this study, students' demographic information was collected and Shering's standard questionnaire was used for emotional intelligence, Rosenberg's self-esteem questionnaire was used.
Results
There was a positive and significant relationship between students' academic performance and self-esteem (p ≥ 0.01). The results of the study also showed that there was no significant relationship between students' academic performance and emotional intelligence (p = 0.01).
Conclusion
The results of our research showed that among the predicted variables, only self-esteem was able to predict academic performance in students. Self-esteem is the best predictor of academic performance.