Academic advising: A correlation analysis of online student retention and academic advisor emotional intelligence

This quantitative correlation research study investigated the statistical relationships between the emotional intelligence, age and gender of 55 academic advisors with their associated undergraduate online student retention rates. The environment was a large regionally accredited university in Midwestern United States. The retention cohorts were derived from 5747 undergraduate students over a nine month period of time. The tool utilized to measure emotional intelligence was the 141 item Mayer-Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEITv2(TM)). Multiple bivariate regression analyses demonstrated no statistically significant correlations supporting a relationship of age, gender or any components of emotional intelligence as measured by the MSCEITv2 with undergraduate online student retention. Findings suggest no linear relationship between these variables within this research environment and population.