Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Critical Thinking Skills in North Central Nigeria.

Abstract

This work evaluated relationship between emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills in Northcentral Nigeria. Two objectives, two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The study adopted correlational research design. The population for this study was pre-service science educators in federal universities in Northcentral Nigeria. The sample for this study was 274 using proportional sampling technique. The instrument for this study were emotional intelligence questionnaire and critical thinking skills questionnaire which were developed by researcher and validated by three experts across universities in Northcentral Nigeria. These instrument were pilot-tested on Pre-service science educators of University of Ilorin three hundred level and evaluated yielding 0.78 which believed reliable for the study. These instruments were used to collect data and the data were analyzed using Special package for social sciences (SPSS). The research questions were answered using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation and scatterplot while the hypothesis was tested using linear regression analysis. The results show that pre-service science educators possessed medium level of both critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence and strong relationship between emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills were also established. The study concluded that there is strong relationship between emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills based on this the study recommended that Teacher education institutions and colleges should embed structured emotional intelligence (EI) development programmes such as workshops on self-awareness, emotion regulation, empathy, and social skills into their curricula. Doing so may enhance critical thinking skills, which are central to effective teaching and learning, continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers should include modules on fostering both EI and critical thinking among students. Teachers with higher EI are better equipped to model reflective thinking and create emotionally supportive learning environments that promote critical inquiry.