Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Emotional Intelligence, Listening Comprehension, and Reading Comprehension among Diverse Adolescents

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Child and Family Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

Social perception is an important aspect of emotional intelligence that affects adolescent functioning at school and in everyday life. This study examined the relationship between Social Perception (affect labeling, matching prosody with facial expressions, and understanding the motives of a speaker) and Reading Comprehension, as well as Listening Comprehension. This is important to consider because understanding emotions, social expressions of emotion, and the motives of others may play a significant role in understanding conversations and stories.

Methods

Hierarchical linear regressions involving 40 diverse adolescents from across the United States were utilized to see if Social Perception tests administered by psychologists predicted Reading Comprehension and Listening Comprehension above and beyond education level, gender, and ethnicity.

Results

Social Perception predicted Listening Comprehension and Reading Comprehension on the Wechsler Individual Achievement Tests, Second Edition (WIAT-II), when controlling for education level, gender and ethnicity. The model explained 36% of the variance in reading comprehension and 54% of the variance in listening comprehension.

Conclusions

The implications for research and educational practice are considered. For instance, future studies should examine whether listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and emotional intelligence can be increased as part of the same intervention package.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agnoli, S., Mancini, G., Pozzoli, T., Baldaro, B., Russo, P. M., & Surcinelli, P. (2012). The interaction between emotional intelligence and cognitive ability in predicting scholastic performance in school-aged children. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(5), 660–665.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berninger, V. W., & Abbott, R. D. (2010). Listening comprehension, oral expression, reading comprehension, and written expression: related yet unique language systems in grades 1, 3, 5, and 7. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102, 635–651.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Billings, C. E., Downey, L. A., Lomas, J. E., Lloyd, J., & Stough, C. (2014). Emotional Intelligence and scholastic achievement in pre-adolescent children. Personality and Individual Differences, 65, 14–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caemmerer, J. M., & Keith, T. Z. (2015). Longitudinal, reciprocal effects of social skills and achievement from kindergarten to eighth grade. Journal of School Psychology, 53, 265–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castilho, P., Carvalho, S. A., Marques, S., & Pinto-Gouveia, J. (2017). Self-compassion and emotional intelligence in adolescence: a multigroup mediational study of the impact of shame memories on depressive symptoms. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 759–768.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fehr, C. N., Davison, M. L., Graves, M. F., Sales, G. C., Seipel, B., & Sekhran-Sharma, S. (2012). The effects of individualized, online vocabulary instruction on picture vocabulary scores: an efficacy study. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 25, 87–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M. (2015). Parents’ weekly descriptions of autonomy supportive communication: promoting children’s motivation to learn and positive emotions. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24, 117–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., & Davison, M. L. (2014). Parental expectations and school relationships as contributors to adolescents’ positive outcomes. Social Psychology of Education, 17, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-013-9237-3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., & Davison, M. L. (2016). Home literacy, television viewing, fidgeting and ADHD in young children. Educational Psychology, 36, 1337–1353.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., Mayor, P., & Herlevi, M. (2015). Motives emanating from personality associated with achievement in a Finnish senior high school: physical activity, curiosity, and family motives. School Psychology International, 36, 207–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., & Oros, E. (2014). Intrinsic motivation, perceived competence and classroom engagement as longitudinal predictors of adolescent reading achievement. Educational Psychology, 34, 119–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2013.822964.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., Oros, E., Smith, L., & Hirchert, T. (2012). Intrinsic motivation to learn: the nexus between psychological health and academic success. Contemporary School Psychology, 16, 91–101. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03340978.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., Peterson, A., & Davison, M. L. (2013). The long-term effects of early parent involvement and parent expectation in the USA. School Psychology International, 34, 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034312454361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., & Worrell, F. C. (2016). Intrinsic motivation, learning goals, engagement, and achievement in a diverse high school. Psychology in the Schools, 53, 321–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., & Worrell, F. C. (2017). Parental autonomy support, community feeling and student expectations as contributors to later achievement among adolescents. Educational Psychology, 37(3), 261–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Froiland, J. M., Worrell, F. C., & Oh, H. (2019). Teacher–student relationships, psychological need satisfaction, and happiness among diverse students. Psychology in the Schools. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22245.

  • Hogan, M. J., Parker, J. D., Wiener, J., Watters, C., Wood, L. M., & Oke, A. (2010). Academic success in adolescence: relationships among verbal IQ, social support and emotional intelligence. Australian Journal of Psychology, 62(1), 30–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ibanez, A., Huepe, D., Gempp, R., Gutiérrez, V., Rivera-Rei, A., & Toledo, M. I. (2013). Empathy, sex and fluid intelligence as predictors of theory of mind. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(5), 616–621.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lehne, M., Engel, P., Rohrmeier, M., Menninghaus, W., Jacobs, A. M., & Koelsch, S. (2015). Reading a suspenseful literary text activates brain areas related to social cognition and predictive inference. PLoS ONE, 10(5), e0124550. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124550.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenberger, E. O., & Smith, D. R. (2005). Essentials of WIAT-II and KTEA-II assessment (Vol. 48). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

  • Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D. R., & Salovey, P. (2016). The ability model of emotional intelligence: principles and updates. Emotion Review, 8, 290–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, J. D., & Geher, G. (1996). Emotional intelligence and the identification of emotion. Intelligence, 22, 89–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: educational implications. New York, NY: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mar, R. A. (2011). The neural bases of social cognition and story comprehension. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 103–134. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120709-145406.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Parker, J. D., Creque, Sr, R. E., Barnhart, D. L., Harris, J. I., Majeski, S. A., Wood, L. M., & Hogan, M. J. (2004). Academic achievement in high school: does emotional intelligence matter? Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 1321–1330.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Puccioni, J. (2015). Predictors of reading achievement: time on reading instruction and approaches to learning. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 64, 249–266.

    Google Scholar 

  • Powell, D. R., Son, S. H., File, N., & Froiland, J. M. (2012). Changes in parent involvement across the transition from public school prekindergarten to first grade and children’s academic outcomes. The Elementary School Journal, 113(2), 276–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vassiou, A., Mouratidis, A., Andreou, E., & Kafetsios, K. (2016). Students’ achievement goals, emotion perception ability and affect and performance in the classroom: a multilevel examination. Educational Psychology, 36, 879–897.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wechsler, D. (2002). Wechsler individual achievement test. 2nd edn. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wechsler, D. (2009). Advanced clinical solutions for the WAIS-IV and WMS-IV. San Antonio, TX: Pearson Assessment.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author Contributions

J. M. F. conceptualized the study, helped with study design, assigned roles for the study, and wrote the first draft of the paper. M. L. D. analyzed the data and wrote most of the results. Both authors collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Studies, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    John Mark Froiland

  2. Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, 56 E. River Road, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Mark L. Davison

Authors
  1. John Mark Froiland
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mark L. Davison
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Mark Froiland.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

Ethics Statement All procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (IRB approval provided by University of Minnesota) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Froiland, J.M., Davison, M.L. Emotional Intelligence, Listening Comprehension, and Reading Comprehension among Diverse Adolescents. J Child Fam Stud 29, 1385–1390 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01557-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01557-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation