Abstract

This paper investigated counsellors’ emotional intelligence as a correlate of assertiveness of students in Federal Unity Colleges in North Central Nigeria. One research question and one hypothesis guided the study. The correlation design was used for the study. From the population of 23,524; a sample of 480 respondents comprising of 427 college students and 53 college counsellors was drawn using the multi-stage and random sampling techniques. Two instruments, namely; Emotional Intelligence Scale by Afolabi and Psychological Adjustment Scale developed by the researchers were used for data collection. Validation and reliability tests were done on the self-developed instrument with the overall Cronbach alpha coefficient of .91. Mean ratings and Standard Deviations were used in answering the research questions and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficients (PPMC) was used to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The finding revealed that there is a low positive relationship between counsellors’ emotional intelligence and improvement of assertiveness of students of Federal Unity Colleges in North Central Nigeria. The study recommended that; courses on component of emotional intelligence should be integrated in the counsellor training curriculum. Since counsellor emotional intelligence correlates with development of assertiveness of college students, school counsellors can offer orientation for fresh college students and provides facilitative conditions for improvement of assertiveness of college students, which were not developed due to different background experiences from where the students come from.