Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Psychological Well being and Academic Self-efficacy on Academic Achievement of Clinical Medical Students in Public Universities in Ghana

Abstract

Factors which influence academic achievement of students have been explored throughout the world. Some of the studies looked at Emotional Intelligence (EI), Academic Self-Efficacy and Psychological Wellbeing (PWB) as against academic Achievement (AA) but as separate entities. Thus, using the quantitative paradigm a cross sectional descriptive survey, this study set out to investigate the impact Emotional Intelligence, Psychological Wellbeing and Academic Self-Efficacy have on Academic Achievement of clinical medical students of public Universities in Ghana. Using a multistage sampling approach, a sample of 297 respondents were used. The study pointed out that there is no statistically significant difference found between the moderate and high levels of Emotional Intelligence. The study also found that there is a statistically significant difference between high and low levels of Psychological Well-being in terms of academic achievement of students. In reference to this, it is recommended that stakeholders of medical education in Ghana should strongly consider implementing Emotional Intelligence development and coaching programs for current medical and future medical school students. Again, the study recommends to stakeholders that implementation of psychological assessment test by each student at least twice in a semester could be helpful.