Abstract:
There are barriers that college students face on their collegiate journey as they pursue their degree. The barriers affect well-being and the success of students and higher education institutions need to be at the forefront of dynamic and comprehensive student support systems for students to persist and be successful. The purpose of this mixed methods research case study was to describe college substance use disorders students’ perceptions of the role that Emotional Intelligence (EI) plays in their college success and well-being. A constructivist worldview and the Emotional Intelligence (EI) Framework was employed to garner information that would assist educational leaders to develop programs that would directly target students with substance use and abuse concerns to develop their EI.
The overarching question that guided this research was: What are the SUDs students’ perceptions of the role that EI plays in their college success and well-being? Sub-questions included (a) What meaning do SUDs college students assign to EI?; (b) Do SUDs college students feel that EI plays a role in their well-being?; (c) Do SUDs college students feel that EI plays a role in their college success?; (d) Is there a correlation between EI and success in SUDs students and if so, what is it?; (e) Is there a correlation between EI and well-being in SUDs students and if so, what is it? It was hypothesized that substance users with high EI would have higher grade point averages and positive life satisfaction scores. Self-reported surveys and a custom questionnaire was used to collect the data from undergraduate, full-time, college students. Through quantitative analysis, it was found that SUDs students that had high EI scores (≥137) also had high life satisfaction scores, however not all subjects that had high EI scores had high GPA scores. The qualitative findings revealed students wanted to be met where they are and do in fact believe that EI and well-being are important components to their college success. It was concluded that the perspectives of college students with substance use and abuse concerns did value Emotional Intelligence and well-being and would like programs to be developed to assist them in developing those skills.
