Impact of extrinsic academic motivation and interpersonal emotional intelligence on academic performance of undergraduate biology students in a Nigerian University

Abstract

Students' performance in science, especially biology, is influenced by a variety of essential factors, including their academic motivation and emotional intelligence. We investigated the impact of extrinsic academic motivation and interpersonal emotional intelligence on academic performance of undergraduate biology students in a Nigerian University. This descriptive survey comprised a sample of 379 undergraduate biology students who were selected at random from the Biological Sciences Department at Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State. Academic Extrinsic Motivation Questionnaire and the Emotional Intelligence Scale were adapted and utilized in this study. Correlational and regression statistics were used to test the hypotheses formulated for this research. Our findings revealed that extrinsic academic motivation and interpersonal emotional intelligence had a significant impact on academic performance of undergraduate biology students (F2, 258= 4.931; p= 0.008; R2= 0.037); extrinsic academic motivation was inversely correlated to academic performance of undergraduate biology students (r= -.202, p= 0.001) but interpersonal emotional intelligence showed no significant relationship with academic performance of undergraduate biology students (r= 0.010 p= 0.855). It was concluded that educators such as teachers, educational psychologists and counsellors should help their students develop strong academic motivation and emotional intelligence.