Emotional Intelligence and Its Relationship to Stress and Transition Shock Amongst First-Year College Students

Abstract

Freshmen students often experience transition shock as their environment change from highschool to college. They are also under the impression that success in college depends solelyon their intellect and usually do not consider emotional intelligence a factor into the successof their academic endeavors. The purpose of this study was to investigate emotionalintelligence and its relationship to stress and transition shock amongst first-year collegestudents. A descriptive-correlational research design was employed. One hundred nineteenrespondents were chosen using purposive sampling technique. Frequency, percentagedistribution, weighted mean, standard deviation, and Pearson r correlation coefficient testwere used to analyze and treat the collected data. Respondents showed a high emotionalintelligence having an overall mean of 2.73 (SD = 0.35). The extent of the respondents’ stresswas also high with an overall mean of 2.61 (SD = 0.59). As for the extent of transition shockfelt by the respondents, the overall mean found is at 2.55 (SD = 0.52) which is alsointerpreted as high. A moderate negative significant relationship between emotionalintelligence and stress (r = -0.476), as well as the relationship between emotional intelligenceand transition shock (r = -0.417) among the freshmen. It is recommended that nursingstudents and educators become aware of emotional intelligence as a factor that contributes tothe success of the students’ transition from high school to college. Also, it is emphasized tofurther develop the emotional intelligence of the students to manage their stress and transitionshock to aid in the success of the students’ academic endeavors.