Emotional Maturity among Medical Students and Its Impact on Their Academic Performance
Vidya Bhagat, Yasrul Izad, Joash Jayaraj, Rohayah Husain, Khairi Che Mat, Myat Moe Thwe Aung
ABSTRACT: Emotional intelligence is a measure of our emotional strength to cope with our surroundings. Monitoring emotional intelligence and being aware of our own emotions shows people’s emotional maturity. Assessing this quality of emotions is important for medical students to examine their overall ability to deal with their immediate world since they may have to confront end number of stressful situations in their profession. The emotional maturity explicitly has an impact on students’ academic performance and is also an important aspect of professional development. Thus the study makes an effort to find out the influence of emotional maturity on academic performance among the year one and year two medical students of University Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA). The study population included preclinical medical students of UniSZA from Year 1 and Year 2 of academic session 2015/2016. The convenient sampling technique was used to select the sample. Data were collected using ‘Emotional Maturity Scale’ to study the association between emotional maturity and academic performance. Out of 124 questionnaires only 10 response sheets were not complete, other 114 were complete. Among the study participants, 87 % and 27 % were males and females, respectively. The data were then compiled and analyzed using SPSS Version 22. The Carl Pearson’s correlation coefficient method was carried out to find the significance of the association between the variables. The result revealed that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between emotional maturity and academic performance (r =0.783, p <0.001). Medical faculty members should lay more emphasis on these aspects thereby mending their students for better performance. Hence the researchers expect that the country will mold medical doctors into better professionals.
KEYWORDS: Emotional maturity; Medical students; Academic performance; Andragogy; Emotional intelligence
Received 31 August 2016 Revised 22 September 2016
Accepted 2 October 2016 In press 26 February 2017
Online 20 March 2017
© Transactions on Science and Technology 2017
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