University life can be emotionally demanding, particularly for students balancing academic pressure with personal and financial stress. A new study from researchers at Arden University, Regent College London, and Birkbeck, University of London has examined whether short workshop programmes can genuinely improve emotional intelligence among students, offering a nuanced picture for educators seeking to support well-being on campus.
The research, published in the Psychreg Journal of Psychology, followed 109 students at Regent College London who took part in a six-session emotional intelligence workshop series. All were studying BSc Health and Social Care, a field in which understanding emotions and managing relationships are central to future professional practice.
Researchers tested three different delivery formats. One group completed all six sessions in a single intensive day, while the others had their sessions spread across two or three weeks with breaks in between, allowing more time to absorb and reflect on the material.
To measure any changes, the team used three well-established psychological tools, including the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test, alongside two situational assessments examining how well participants understand and manage emotions in real-world scenarios. Students completed the assessments both before and after the workshops.
The results showed no statistically significant improvement in emotional intelligence scores across any of the three pilot groups. Average scores rose slightly in some cases and fell marginally in others, but none of these changes reached a level that researchers could confidently attribute to the workshops rather than chance.
Despite the lack of measurable change in the test results, qualitative feedback painted a different picture. Students consistently reported feeling more confident in handling conflict, communicating with others, and managing their own stress after taking part in the workshops. Many said they intended to apply these skills in their future careers in health and social care, where emotional awareness is regarded as an important professional competency.
The researchers suggest that the intensive single-day format used in the first pilot may have left students fatigued, potentially affecting both their engagement and test performance. The more gradual format, spread over three weeks, was better received and may provide a more practical model for delivering emotional intelligence training in educational settings.
The study also found that scores on the more complex situational tests were somewhat lower than expected, which researchers linked to the international and multilingual backgrounds of many participants. The finding raises questions about how emotional intelligence can be assessed fairly across diverse student populations.
While the results do not show that workshops can reliably increase emotional intelligence scores within a few weeks, they suggest students still value this type of training and perceive personal benefits from taking part. The authors say longer, more sustained programmes involving larger and more diverse groups of students are needed to determine whether structured education can produce lasting improvements in emotional intelligence.
For now, the research adds to growing recognition that emotional skills have a place in higher education curricula, even as researchers continue to assess how their impact can be measured effectively.
