Social support: mediating the emotional intelligence-academic stress link

Abstract

IntroductionThis study examines the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and academic stress among tertiary-level students who continued academic activities remotely during the pandemic and the mediating role of social support (SS) in the relationship.MethodsUsing a cross-sectional survey design, 429 students studying business, engineering, social science, and science in Bangladesh provided data via Qualtrics. Using the Structural Equation Modeling in SmartPLS 4 (4.0.8.9), we modeled emotional intelligence as the reflective-formative and social support (support from family, friends, and significant other) and perceived academic stress as the reflective-reflective, second-order constructs. We also conducted a one-way between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) to investigate the impact of gender (male and female) and current stage of academic study (Undergraduate year one to four and post-graduation) on emotional intelligence and academic stress, respectively.Results and discussionResults show that all the hypothesized relationships are statistically significant: EI is negatively related to perceived academic stress, and SS significantly mediates the relationship between EI and academic stress. Hence, essential strategies are suggested to help students for managing academic stress.

The Mediating Effect of Digital Literacy and Self-Regulation on the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Stress among University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study.

“…These ndings are in the same vein with a study carried out in Morocco by Ksiksou et al in 2023, which found that nursing students with high emotional intelligence and moderate stress levels had positive correlations between their perceived stress and emotional intelligence [52]. Despite the widespread perception that students with higher emotional intelligence have lower stress levels [56] [8] [53], those with high emotional intelligence may experience moderate levels of stress as shown in the results of this study.…”

“…The study discovered a strong relationship between university students' perceptions of stress and emotional intelligence dimensions [34]. Another study conducted among 119 undergraduate students from university of Kerala reported a moderate positive correlation between emotional intelligence and academic stress [33].The ndings aligned with those observed in college students from Pakistan, Morocco, Bangladesh, and Spain [51] [31] [52] [53]. This can be a result of the fact that health care students who have a high emotional intelligence may encounter situations in which they tend to blame themselves for not ful lling expectations.…”