Personal, Family and Academic Factors towards Emotional Intelligence: A Case Study

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is generally defined as the ability to control one’s own and other’s emotion under a particular situation. Using theory of EI, this study examines the influence of demographic background on Emotional Intelligence among accounting students in a private university. The demographic background focused in the study is categorised into personal factors (gender, ethnicity, region of origin and hometown location), family factors (family income, parents' employment and parents' level of education) and academic factors (year of degree, academic performance, type of secondary school and prior education level). The data is collected during lecture sessions through a self-administered questionnaire. The study found that family income, year of degree and prior education level show significant influence on the level of EI among the accounting students. However, further analysis prevails that only year of degree and family income able to explain the variation of EI.