Relationship Between Teachers' Emotional Intelligence and Students' Academic Achievement Among Public Secondary Schools in South East Geopolitical Zone, Nigeria

The study examined the relationship between teachers' emotional intelligence and students' academic achievement among public secondary schools in the South East Geopolitical Zone, Nigeria.To facilitate this study, five research questions, objective and corresponding hypotheses were formulated.Literature relevant to the topic was reviewed.This helped to establish the gap that the study fill.Descriptive survey design was used for the study, with the total population of 28,573 teachers from 2,750 public senior secondary Schools and samples size of 394 teachers from 246 public senior secondary Schools.Questionnaire contains 24 items, validated by an expert at index of 0.73 and reliability index at 0.82.The questionnaires were administered by the researcher and two research and data were harmonized base on response and analysis.The data collected was analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research question, while PPMC was used to test research hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.The findings of the study revealed that teachers' self-awareness and self-regulation, significantly contribute to students' academic achievement in public secondary schools in the South East Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria.The study concluded that teachers' emotional intelligence enhances students' academic achievement in public secondary schools in the South East Geopolitical Zone, Nigeria.The study recommended among others that teachers should be exposed to continuous training that strengthens their self-awareness so they can better understand learners' needs and improve instructional delivery.