An investigation of the relationship between academic motivation and emotional intelligence levels of ELT students at a university in Turkey

Students who study in English Language Teaching department are teacher candidates of the future. Psychologists, educators and researchers who focus on the learning environment and the academic achievement, try to understand how they can provide the best effect of education in terms of individual differences in the process of education (Marcela, 2015). Thus, the purpose of our study is to investigate the relationship between academic motivation and emotional intelligence of ELT students at Atatürk University. 225 participants joined the study voluntarily. The data were gathered through personal information form, emotional intelligence evaluation scale and academic motivation scale. The results indicated that the participants have high levels of emotional intelligence and academic motivation. A positive and moderate relationship was found between emotional intelligence and academic motivation. MSE, EAW and EM sub- dimensions are affected by gender factor. Age has an impact on MSE and SM sub-dimensions. Students' education year factor influenced SM, EAW and MSE sub-dimensions. However, gender, age and education year are not influential in academic motivation. Key Words: Academic motivation, emotional intelligence, teacher candidates.