Abstract:
The study was carried out to determine the extent Demographic characteristics (age, gender, socio-economic status and grade level) predict social competence and emotional intelligence of Junior Secondary (JS) students. Five research questions were answered and two hypotheses formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The social cognitive learning theory by Bandura provided basis for explaining the relationship between demographic variables, social competence and emotional intelligence. The study adopted the correlational survey design. Two hundred and eighty eight (288) JS 1 and JS 3 students constituted the sample. Using a disproportionate stratified random sampling technique, one boys’ and one girls’ secondary schools in Nsukka urban were chosen for the study. In each of the selected schools, two arms of JS I and two arms of JS 3 were randomly selected. All the students in these arms were used for the study. Two instruments namely a-36 item adapted version of emotional intelligence questionnaire students short-form and a 30-item researcher developed social competence scale were used for data collection. Internal consistency reliability estimates of 0.65 and 0.83 were established for the emotional intelligence questionnaire and the social competence scale respectively. The instruments were administered on the students by the researcher and four research assistants. The data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for answering research questions 1 and 2, while Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was used to answer research questions 3, 4, and 5. The hypotheses were tested using regression analysis. The results showed that the students had high emotional intelligence ( , SD = 0.47) and average social competence ( SD = 0.45). There was high and significant correlation (r = .735, p < .000) between emotional intelligence and social competence. The demographic variables namely age, gender, socio-economic status and grade level explained 13.1% (R2 = .131) of the variance in social competent and 10.8% (R2 = .180) of the variance in emotional intelligence. Age (t = -3.569, p < .000), gender (t = 3.157, p < .002) and grade level (t = 5.172, p < .000) significantly predicted social competence. Age (t = -3.426, p < .001), gender (t = 2.326, p < .021) and grade level (t = 4.216, p < .000) also significantly predicted emotional intelligence of the students at p < .05. Socio-economic status did not significantly predict emotional intelligence (t = 1.682, p < .094) and social competence (t = .705, p < .482) at p < .05. Based on the findings, it was recommended that demographic characteristics such as age, gender and grade level should be considered when taking decisions related to social competence and emotional intelligence of students in Junior Secondary Schools.
