790629

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LIS0010.1177/0961000618790629Journal of Librarianship and Information ScienceJan et al.

Article

Journal of Librarianship and

The relationship between emotional Information Science

2020, Vol. 52(1) 237­–248
© The Author(s) 2018
intelligence, library anxiety, and academic Article reuse guidelines:
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achievement among the university students DOI: 10.1177/0961000618790629

https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000618790629
journals.sagepub.com/home/lis

Sajjad Ullah Jan

Allama Iqbal Open University, Pakistan

Mumtaz Ali Anwar

University of the Punjab, Pakistan

Nosheen Fatima Warraich

University of the Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract
Emotional intelligence has a strong link with academic anxieties. It is apparent from the published literature that a student with high
emotional intelligence would face low academic anxiety and vice versa. Similarly, library anxiety, which is an academic anxiety, also
affects students’ academic performance. Library anxiety of students may increase or decrease along with their ability to understand
and manage their own emotions and those of others. However, there is a dearth of literature on the relationship between these two
concepts. Data regarding these concepts were collected from university undergraduates. Findings established significant relationships
between emotional intelligence, library anxiety and academic performance among the participants. This study has practical implications
for academicians and professional librarians to deal with the library anxiety of students and their academic performance.

Keywords
Academic performance, emotional intelligence, library anxiety, Pakistan, university students

Introduction
It is a natural phenomenon for people facing a variety of situ-
ations to become emotive and take appropriate actions as the
circumstances demand. Emotions are strong sources of infor-
mation and, therefore, largely influence our thinking, actions,
behavior, communication, and decision making. If one has
the ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and
those of others appropriately, it would have a positive impact
on one’s everyday life activities. How successfully one
responds to a particular situation based on intelligent use of
the emotions-laden information is very important. This capa-
bility was named emotional intelligence (EI). According to
Bar-On (2006) the concept of EI was introduced about a cen-
tury ago. However, the phrase “Emotional Intelligence” was
coined for the first time by Salovey and Mayer (1990: 189)
who defined it as the “ability to monitor one’s own and others’
feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to
use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions”.
This concept was popularized by Goleman (1995) in his
book, Working with Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can
Matter more than IQ. He made a claim that “Emotional
Intelligence” (EI) could be more powerful than “Intelligence
Quotient” (IQ). His claim attracted many researchers to focus
on the idea of EI that comprised a number of skills/abilities.
Library anxiety (LA) is an academic anxiety that might
affect students’ performance in the academic environment.
It is “confusion, fear, and frustration felt by a library user,
especially someone lacking experience, when faced with
the need to find information in a library” (Reitz, 2014).
Library anxiety manifests students’ negative feelings about
Corresponding author:
Sajjad Ullah Jan, Allama Iqbal Open University, Sector H-8, Islamabad,
44000, Pakistan.
Email: Sajjad.ullah@aiou.edu.pk
238 Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 52(1)
the size of library, knowledge of the library, use and library
search-skills, etc. (Bostick, 1992; Kuhlthau, 1991; Mellon,
1986). It affects students’ performance in different aca-
demic areas, e.g. making citations (Jiao et al., 2008), com-
puter attitude (Mizrachi and Shoham, 2004), and academic
procrastination, etc. (Onwuegbuzie and Jiao 2000). The
academic performance of students demands high EI skills
(Parker et al., 2004) and lack or low level of LA (Jiao et al.,
2008) because both these concepts have been considered
as predictors of their academic achievement. Thus, it is
assumed that there should be some kind of relationship
between these concepts. Therefore, this study was con-
ducted with the purpose to identify the association, if any,
between EI and LA among students.
Statement of the problem
The power of emotions cannot be underestimated because
these influence about every aspect of an individual’s life.
Emotions, according to Panju (2008), are feelings which
contain valuable data/information. Emotions directly
affect the academic learning process, behavior, psycho-
logical health, and human relationships. Thus, those stu-
dents who use emotions-laden information in a smart way
(emotionally intelligent) usually become successful in the
academic environment because they possess higher aca-
demic motivation and achievement ability, better problem-
solving and planning skills, and positive attitude towards
school and learning. Apart from emotions, the library and
information science literature has revealed that there is
another important factor, i.e. library anxiety, which also
has an influence on students’ learning and academic per-
formance. LA is specific to the library environment and is
unrelated to general trait anxiety in students (Jiao and
Onwuegbuzie, 1999). It is a type of academic anxiety
which constrains students to avoid library use as well as
making them reluctant to ask librarians for help.
Students with the ability of perceiving, managing, and
utilizing their emotions with higher level of EI have been
proven to have a lower level of academic anxieties
(Khaledian et al., 2013; Rouhani, 2008). Earlier literature
on LA has acknowledged the existence of emotional
problems of library-anxious students regarding: the
information resources, library size, library knowledge,
library staff, and mechanical barriers, etc. that are consid-
ered as the sources of students’ LA (Janaki and Harun,
2015; Mellon, 1986). So, it is assumed that students with
the abilities of identifying, understanding and recogniz-
ing (perceiving), managing and utilizing of his/her own
emotions and those of others would possibly overcome
their negative emotions regarding the library and would
therefore, comparatively, experience lower LA. Thus,
there was a need to study the relationship between these
two concepts and also their relationship with academic
achievement in terms of grade point average (GPA). This
research will fill gap in the literature of EI and LA and
their associates.
Research objective and questions
This study was designed to investigate the relationship
between emotional intelligence, library anxiety, and aca-
demic achievement among undergraduate university stu-
dents. The following research questions were framed to
achieve this objective:
1. What is the relationship between emotional intel-
ligence (EI), library anxiety (LA), and academic
achievement (GPA) among undergraduate univer-
sity students?
2. What is the relationship between emotional intel-
ligence (EI), library anxiety (LA), and academic
achievement (GPA) among undergraduates of dif-
ferent subject areas from different types of
universities?
Delimitation of the study
There are two views about emotional intelligence (EI) in
the literature. One is that EI is a set of cognitive abilities to
understand and process emotions-related information.
That is pure EI which is irrespective of personality traits
and social competencies. The other view is that EI is a set
of emotional, personal, and social competencies. This
study is limited to the first view of EI.
Literature review
Emotional intelligence: Implications for anxieties
The insufficiency in EI abilities is a susceptibility factor in
the development of academic anxieties. For example,
Chao (2003) studied the relationship between foreign lan-
guage classroom anxiety and EI among 360 college stu-
dents. For this purpose, Chao utilized the Foreign Language
Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and Developing
Emotional Intelligence Skills (EDEIS) instruments. A sig-
nificant relationship was found between EI and foreign
language anxiety. Rouhani (2008) found a considerable
change in both EI skills and foreign language anxiety
scores of students in the experimental group compared to
those students in the control group. The results indicated
that increase in the score of EI skills of the experimental
group influenced and decreased the score of the same
group in foreign language anxiety. Pekrun and Stephens
(2012) argued that emotion regulation by students, in an
academic setting, develops positive emotions that help
them to prevent arousal of negative emotions. Laripour
and Nejad (2013) established a negative and significant
relationship (at p< 0.1) between learning anxiety and EI
Jan et al. 239
skills among Iranian students. Malik et al. (2013) found a
significantly negative correlation between EI and test anx-
iety (at p< .05) among a sample of 148 Pakistani interme-
diate students. Similar results were found by Khaledian
et al. (2013) among the accounting students. They also
reported a meaningful positive correlation between stu-
dents’ EI and their academic performance.
SeyyedHosseini et al. (2014) investigated the relation-
ship between EI and LA among a sample of 700 Iranian
students and found a significant negative relationship
between the two. They used the normalized Questionnaire
of Siberia Shrink’s Emotional Intelligence (Mansouri,
2001) and the Localized Questionnaire of Bostick’s
Library Anxiety scale (LAS) (Jowkar and Taherian, 2008).
Earlier studies have questioned the use of Bostick’s LAS
for its limitations in the current digital library environment
(Kwon, 2004) as well as in a different, non-English-speak-
ing, culture (Anwar et al., 2004). Similarly, Goleman’s
(1998) model is a combination of cognitive and personal-
ity traits. However, this study is based on pure cognitive
abilities of students regarding emotions. Thus, measuring
cognitive abilities for understanding and managing emo-
tions and using a new library anxiety scale in a different
culture is significant and unique to the present study. Apart
from the academic anxieties, emotional intelligence also
has an established association with other types of anxieties
such as: state-trait anxiety (Extremera and Pizarro, 2006),
generalized anxiety disorder (Lizeretti and Extremera,
2011), competitive anxiety (Torkfar et al., 2011), commu-
nication anxiety (Fall et al., 2013), and social anxiety dis-
order (Diaz-Castela et al., 2013).
Emotional intelligence and library anxiety:
Implications for common facets
The published literature of EI and LA has shown that some
academic factors have recognized relationships with both
these concepts. For example, Matteson et al. (2013) estab-
lished a positive relationship between EI and information
literacy skills of students whereas Battle (2004) found that
information literacy instructions have a negative relation-
ship with LA. In other words, information literacy instruc-
tions are helpful in developing information literacy skills
that lead to the decrease of LA. However, the influence of
a student’s emotions in the process of gaining information
literacy instructions need to be understood. Hen and
Goroshit (2014) and Chow (2011) found that students with
low EI reported academic procrastination in their studies
which has also been found as significantly associated with
LA (Onwuegbuzie and Jiao, 2000; Onwuegbuzie et al.,
2004). Jiao et al. (2008) studied the effect of LA on citation
errors and quality of reference lists in 93 doctoral disserta-
tion proposals in Education. The findings established a
multivariate relationship between LA, citation errors and
quality of reference lists. This study also recognized the
influential role of EI on citation errors and quality of refer-
ence lists. Kumar et al. (2012) found a positive relation-
ship between students’ EI and their computer attitude. Jiao
and Onwuegbuzie (2004), who investigated the relation-
ship between computer attitude and LA found a strong
multivariate relationship between the two.
The literature reviewed above indicates that some com-
mon academic characteristics, such as information literacy,
computer attitude, and academic procrastination have
association with the concepts of EI and LA. Thus, if there
is an association between EI and LA then it connotes that
there is also some kind of relationship between these con-
cepts. This possible relationship has not been fully
explored before. Therefore, the need was felt for the inves-
tigation of the relationship between EI and LA among stu-
dents of different academic subjects in order to determine
if there was any relationship between the two.
Understanding these concepts and their relationship, if
any, will help in designing future information literacy pro-
grams and dealing with library-anxious students. The
results will, hopefully, be useful for library professionals
working on the issue of LA of users and for academicians
working on the emotion-related problems of students. The
ultimate impact will, definitely, be on students’ academic
performance.
Methodology
Study design
The concepts of EI and LA have been clearly identified
and quantified in earlier research (Anwar et al. 2012;
Bar-On, 2006; Bostick, 1992; Mayer et al., 2002; Schutte
et al., 1998; Van Kampen, 2004). Therefore, the quantita-
tive research method, using a questionnaire, was consid-
ered as the most suitable for this study. The questionnaire
survey usually helps in collecting a large amount of data in
a short period of time and provides a quantitative or
numeric description of a population’s attitude (Creswell,
2009). The research design used was correlational. The
techniques of bi-variate correlations were used for recog-
nizing relationships between EI, LA, and GPA.
Research population and site
The fourth-year undergraduate students of three different
subject areas from three different universities were the tar-
get population of this study. The subject areas selected
were: electrical engineering from the University of
Engineering and Technology; social sciences from the
University of Peshawar; and crop production sciences from
the University of Agriculture, Peshawar. These are the key
subject areas taught in these universities which were cho-
sen because of their maturity, diverse academic disciplines,
and extensive academic and research activities. Also, these
240 Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 52(1)
universities were adjacent to each other and easily accessi-
ble to the researchers. The permission to conduct the study
was obtained from the Dean of each faculty and the con-
cerned class instructor. Pakistan does not have a legal
requirement for an institutional review board. The total
population comprised 896 fourth-year students in which
196 were from electrical engineering, 345 from social sci-
ences, and 355 from crop production sciences.
The rationale behind the selection of this population
was that the fourth-year students become more mature and
library acquainted at this stage of their study. They need to
regularly visit and use the library for completing their class
assignments, projects, and theses. Thus, the selection of a
multi-disciplinary population might provide a better
insight into the relationship between emotional intelli-
gence, library anxiety, and academic performance.
Data collection instruments
Instrument for emotional intelligence.  Two separate standard
instruments were used for data collection. Data regarding
EI were collected via the Schutte Emotional Intelligence
Scale which comprises 33 items and comparatively
requires less time to complete (Schutte et al., 1998). The
reasons behind selection of this scale were:
•• It is a self-report inventory/scale which focuses
only on typical EI;
•• The Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale is based
on Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) ability model of EI.
The present study is based on the definition of this
model;
•• The Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale was con-
cerned with the emotional abilities only and not with
the personality or social skills (Schutte et al., 2009:
129). This study is only concerned with the emo-
tional ability, not personality or social skills such as
leadership, happiness, optimism, flexibility, etc.
The Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale uses a 5-point
Likert type scale, from 1, strongly disagree to 5, strongly
agree, for the measurement of each of the 33 items/state-
ments. The factor analytic studies of Petrides and Furnham
(2000), Ciarrochi et al. (2001), and Saklofske et al. (2003)
recommended a four-factor solution for the 33 items of the
scale which were: Perception of Emotions, Managing Own
Emotions, Managing Others’ Emotions, and Utilization of
Emotions. Further, the previous literature clearly shows the
applicability and suitability of the Schutte’s EI Scale in about
every type of culture (Brackett and Mayer, 2003; Carmeli,
2003; Carmeli and Josman, 2006; Schutte et al., 1998, 2009).
Instrument for library anxiety.  The earlier literature has indi-
cated that Bostick’s LAS is now outdated and not suitable
for measuring LA in the current, particularly, digital library
environment (Kwon, 2004, 2008) as well as for a non-
American cultural group (Anwar et al., 2004). Van
Kampen’s (2004) scale was developed for postgraduate
students and would not be suitable for undergraduate stu-
dents. Therefore, the option for the present study was
AQAK, a new library anxiety scale which had been devel-
oped for undergraduate students and was statistically 90%
reliable (Anwar et al., 2012). It comprises 40 statements
grouped into five factors which are: information resources
(CA = 0.723); library staff (CA = 0.843); user knowledge
(CA = 0.772); library environment (CA = 0.758); and user
education (CA = 0.625) (Anwar et al., 2012). LA associ-
ated with these five factors has been separately studied on
the same population. The factor user education was found
to be the largest and library environment was found to be
the smallest source of LA for the students (Jan et al.,
2016a). Further, each statement of the AQAK LA scale
measures the level of LA on a 5-point Likert type scale
with values ranging from 1, strongly disagree to 5, strongly
agree (Anwar et al., 2012).
Data collection and analysis procedures. The questionnaires
were administered to students during their class hours with
the help of Class Representatives. Students’ consent was
sought by signing the consent form. All students (n =
861/896) who were present on the day and time of distribu-
tion of questionnaires showed their consent for participation
in the study. A total of 35 students were either absent or out
of the classrooms when the questionnaires were distributed.
The data were collected during the fall semester of 2014.
A total of 738 filled questionnaires were collected.
Thirteen questionnaires (five from electrical engineering
and four each from social sciences and crop production
sciences) were rejected due to either being incomplete or
with invalid responses. The remaining 725 questionnaires
gave a response rate of 84.20% which was quite high. The
data were processed using SPSS version 20.0.
Results and discussion
Demographic characteristics of the respondents
A total of 725 (565, 77.93% male and 160, 22.07% female)
students fully responded to the questionnaires. Out of these
725 respondents, 22.76% were from electrical engineering,
38.48% from the social sciences, and 38.76% from crop
production sciences. A large number of students (39.59%)
had achieved their GPA in the range of 3.01–3.50/4.00, fol-
lowed by 26.21% in the range of 2.51–3.0. Together,
61.10% of the respondents achieved 3.00 or above.
Normality distribution of data
The normality of data regarding emotional intelligence
(EI) and library anxiety (LA) was checked by producing
Jan et al. 241
Figure1.  Histogram of averages of emotional intelligence
scores.
Figure 2.  Histogram of averages of library anxiety scores.
their histograms. Figure1 represents the histogram of the
averages of EI scores which approximate a normal bell-
shaped curve. Similarly, the LA data have also normal dis-
tribution (Figure 2).
Reliability of scales
The Schutte’s EI scale appeared to have good internal
consistency in this study. The overall Cronbach’s alpha
(CA) value (i.e. .85) and separately calculated CA values
for the students of electrical engineering (.87), crop pro-
duction sciences (.84), and social sciences (.84) clearly
showed that these internal reliabilities closely match the
.87 reported by Schutte et al. (1998). Similarly, the
AQAK LA scale was found to have good internal consist-
ency with an overall CA value of .82 and separately cal-
culated CA values for the students of electrical
engineering (.83), crop production sciences (.77), and
social sciences (.82).
Correlation between emotional intelligence,
library anxiety, and academic achievement
The Pearson’s correlation was conducted to assess the cor-
relation between EI, LA, and GPA among the 725 respond-
ents of the study. The results are presented in Table 1. The
correlation analysis established significant relationships (at
p< 0.01) between EI, LA, and GPA of students. The correla-
tion coefficient between EI and LA was found to be -.270.
This shows that there was an inverse relationship between
EI and LA, meaning that an increase in EI would result in a
decrease in LA and vice versa. The correlation between EI
and GPA for these respondents was positive and significant
(r = .291, p< 0.01). The correlation analysis also established
a negative and significant relationship (r = -.213, p< 0.01)
between LA and GPA of the students (Table 2) meaning that
if there was an increase in one the other decreased and vice
versa. This relationship confirms the trends found in earlier
studies (e.g. Doris et al., 2015; Jiao and Onwuegbuzie,
1997) in the sense that students with low LA would have
made frequent library visits and had, definitely, utilized
library resources that had a positive impact on their GPA.
On the other hand, library-anxious students avoided the use
of library and, therefore, performed poorly on their aca-
demic tasks.
Subject area-wise differences in correlations
of emotional intelligence, library anxiety, and
grade point average among the respondents
The Pearson’s correlation tests were performed between
EI, LA, and GPA with the option of data → split file →
compare groups in SPSS so as to examine the subject
area-wise differences in the relationship between these
variables. The purpose was to find out whether the same
type of correlation existed between EI, LA, and GPA
among the respondents of three subject areas. The analy-
sis yielded some interesting results which are presented
in Table 2.
The relationship was not significant between EI and LA
and between LA and GPA among students of electrical
engineering. However, the relationship of EI with GPA
appeared to be positive and significant (r = .370, p< 0.01).
This means that higher or lower EI level of engineering
students had no significant relationship with their appre-
hension, nervousness, and anxiety regarding the library-
related activities. But, the electrical engineering students
who were emotionally more intelligent performed aca-
demically better and obtained a higher GPA.
242 Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 52(1)

Table 1.  Correlation between emotional intelligence, library anxiety, and grade point average (N = 725).

Emotional intelligence Library anxiety Grade point average

Emotional intelligence Pearson correlation 1 –.270** .291**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
Library anxiety Pearson correlation –.270** 1 –.213**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
Grade point average Pearson correlation .291** –.213** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000  

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 2.  The correlation comparison between emotional intelligence, library anxiety, and grade point average on the basis of area
of study.

Area of study Emotional intelligence Library anxiety Grade point average

Electrical Emotional intelligence Pearson correlation 1 –.098 .370**
Engineering Sig. (2-tailed) .211 .000
Library anxiety Pearson correlation –.098 1 –.149
Sig. (2-tailed) .211 .057
GPA Pearson correlation .370** –.149 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .057  
Crop Production Emotional intelligence Pearson correlation 1 –.256** .226**
Sciences Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
Library anxiety Pearson correlation –.256** 1 –.098
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .100
GPA Pearson correlation .226** –.098 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .100  
Social Sciences Emotional intelligence Pearson correlation 1 –.306** .167**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .005
Library anxiety Pearson correlation –.306** 1 –.180**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .003
GPA Pearson correlation .167** –.180** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .005 .003  

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The correlation analysis revealed a negatively signifi-
cant relationship (r = -.256, p< 0.01) between EI and LA
among the students of crop production sciences. Among the
same group of students, a positive and significant correla-
tion appeared between EI and GPA (r = .226, p< 0.01).
However, the relationship between LA and GPA appeared
to be non-significant. These results suggest that those stu-
dents of crop production sciences who were emotionally
more intelligent experienced a lower level of LA and those
who were emotionally less intelligent experienced a higher
level of LA. The emotionally intelligent students achieved
a higher GPA and vice versa. But, similar to the electrical
engineering students, their LA had no impact on their GPA.
The Pearson’s correlation established a negatively sig-
nificant relationship (r = -.306, p< 0.01) between EI and
LA among the students of social sciences. The relationship
between EI and GPA among these students appeared to be
positive and significant (r = .167, p< 0.01). The relation-
ship between LA and GPA was negative and significant
(r = -.180, p< 0.01). These findings indicate that more
emotionally intelligent students experienced low LA and
vice versa. They achieved a higher GPA as compared to
those who had low EI. And those with low LA achieved a
higher GPA as compared to those who experienced a
higher level of LA.
The non-significant association of the two variables
(i.e. EI and LA) among the respondents of electrical engi-
neering was surprising which contradicted the result of
SeyyedHosseini et al. (2014). Similarly, results regarding
the association between LA and GPA among the respond-
ents of electrical engineering and crop production sciences
contradicted the results of Jiao et al. (1996) and Jiao and
Onwuegbuzie (1997). These authors found significant
association between LA and the GPA of students.
Correlations between the sub-factors of
emotional intelligence and library anxiety
The association between the sub-factors of EI and LA were
also examined with the help of Pearson’s Correlation
Jan et al. 243

Table 3.  Correlations between the sub-factors of emotional intelligence and the AQAK (N = 725).

Sub-factors of EI Sub-factors of library anxiety Overall library

anxiety
  Information User Library Library User
resources knowledge environment staff education
Perception of emotion Pearson correlation –.104** –.240** –.090* –.160** .057 –.182**
Sig. (2-tailed) .005 .000 .015 .000 .126 .000
Managing own emotion Pearson correlation –.149** –.232** –.187** –.227** .035 –.251**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .349 .000
Managing others’ emotion Pearson correlation –.120** –.194** –.106** –.174** –.171** –.237**
Sig. (2-tailed) .001 .000 .004 .000 .000 .000
Utilization of emotions Pearson correlation –.052 –.237** –.072 –.103** –.162** –.197**
Sig. (2-tailed) .158 .000 .052 .005 .000 .000

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed); *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Coefficients (Table 3). The correlation analysis revealed
that two sub-factors of library anxiety (information
resources and library environment) had no significant rela-
tionship with the sub-factor utilization of emotions of EI.
Similarly, user education of LA appeared to have no sig-
nificant relationship with the perception of emotions of EI.
The user knowledge and library staff of LA were found in
significantly negative association with all the sub-factors
of EI (perception of emotions, managing own emotions,
managing others’ emotions, and utilizations of emotions).
Also, all the four sub-factors of EI appeared to be nega-
tively and significantly correlated with the overall LA of
the students. The data clearly show that students with high
ability of managing others’ emotions experienced lower
LA, associated with all the five factors of the AQAK, and
vice versa. Similarly, those students who were smart in
perception of emotions and managing own emotions expe-
rienced low LA associated with all its sub-factors except
user education.
Thus, it is clear from these results that all five factors of
EI are relevant to levels of LA. Therefore, students should
be trained to enhance their EI in order to help them over-
come about every type of academic anxiety.
Subject area-wise differences in correlations of
the sub-factors of emotional intelligence and
library anxiety
The relationships between the sub-factors of EI and those
of the AQAK Library Anxiety Scale were compared
among the students of the three subject areas. Only the fac-
tor user knowledge of the AQAK appeared to be negatively
and significantly associated with all the sub-factors of EI
among the students of electrical engineering and social sci-
ences (Table 4). That is, an increase in the abilities of per-
ceiving emotions, managing own and others’ emotions,
and utilization of emotions would enhance students’
knowledge about the library. Similarly, the factors library
environment and library staff appeared to be in negative
and significant association with all the sub-factors of EI
among students of crop production sciences.
The Pearson’s correlation matrix revealed some inter-
esting results regarding the type of relationship between
the sub-factors. The sub-factors of EI, managing others’
emotions and utilization of emotions showed significantly
positive relationship with the sub-factor library environ-
ment of LA among engineering students. Whereas, the
sub-factors perception of emotions and managing own
emotions of EI had significantly positive relationship with
the user education of LA among students of crop produc-
tion sciences. However, among the social sciences stu-
dents no positive relationship was found between the
sub-factors.
All the sub-factors of EI were found in negatively sig-
nificant association with total LA scores among the stu-
dents of crop production sciences and social sciences.
However, the results were different for engineering stu-
dents. The differences found among students in these sub-
ject areas might involve several possible reasons. These
could be due to disciplinary or institutional differences,
centralized or decentralized library systems, academic cul-
ture, and gender of professionals in each library system.
Also, these students were using their respective libraries
with varying frequencies. Their use of library resources
varied according to their field of study. The students of
crop production and social sciences used their libraries
more frequently than those of electrical engineering. The
possible reason is that the students of engineering are text-
book oriented. The dissimilarities of the current findings
might also involve some other variables that needed to be
explored. In sum, the results are quite interesting and,
therefore, further research is suggested in this direction so
as to make the phenomenon clear.
Discussion
The negative and significant relationship between emo-
tional intelligence and library anxiety indicates that an
244 Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 52(1)

Table 4.  Area of study-wise comparison: Correlations between the sub-factors of emotional intelligence and library anxiety.

Area of study Sub-factors of EI Sub-factors of library anxiety

  Information User Library Library User Overall library

resources knowledge environment staff education anxiety
Electrical Perception of Pearson correlation .043 –.369** .114 –.073 .019 –.087
Engineering emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .580 .000 .144 .350 .804 .268
Managing own Pearson correlation –.074 –.363** –.090 –.140 .106 –.180*
emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .346 .000 .251 .072 .175 .021
Managing others’ Pearson correlation .038 –.276** .213** .012 –.244** –.081
emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .625 .000 .006 .875 .002 .300
Utilization of Pearson Correlation .129 –.311** .285** .135 –.136 .034
emotions Sig. (2-tailed) .100 .000 .000 .084 .082 .660
Crop Perception of Pearson correlation –.144* –.111 –.136* –.171** .154** –.158**
Production emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .016 .064 .022 .004 .010 .008
Sciences Managing own Pearson correlation –.183** –.152* –.246** –.290** .202** –.258**
emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .002 .010 .000 .000 .001 .000
Managing others’ Pearson correlation –.151* –.127* –.163** –.198** .039 –.199**
emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .011 .033 .006 .001 .519 .001
Utilization of Pearson correlation –.091 –.156** –.189** –.199** .060 –.207**
emotions Sig. (2-tailed) .127 .009 .001 .001 .316 .000
Social Sciences Perception of Pearson correlation –.176** –.276** –.192** –.234** .022 –.293**
emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .003 .000 .001 .000 .718 .000
Managing own Pearson correlation –.126* –.207** –.144* –.180** –.065 –.234**
emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .035 .000 .016 .003 .278 .000
Managing others’ Pearson correlation –.103 –.136* –.129* –.157** –.126* –.209**
emotion Sig. (2-tailed) .086 .023 .032 .009 .035 .000
Utilization of Pearson correlation –.067 –.214** –.102 –.072 –.234** –.218**
emotions Sig. (2-tailed) .263 .000 .088 .229 .000 .000

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed); *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

increase in one will decrease the other and vice versa. If a
student possesses the abilities of perceiving and under-
standing of emotions, the abilities of managing their own
emotions and those of others, and the abilities of utiliza-
tion of emotions, he/she would experience no or a low
level of LA. But, a student with low EI abilities will be
vulnerable to LA. Thus, the type of correlation between EI
and LA as established in the present study confirms and
supports the earlier literature in this regard. Many previous
studies (Ebrahimi and Khoshsima, 2014; Khaledian et al.,
2013; Malik et al., 2013; Mohammadi and Mousalou,
2012; SeyyedHosseini et al., 2014; and Valizadeh and
Alavinia, 2013) found that EI had negatively significant
relationship with different types of academic anxieties,
including LA. Thus, the trend identified in the previous
research has been endorsed by the results of the present
research.
Those students who had higher EI abilities attained
higher academic performance in terms of GPA as com-
pared to those with lower EI. These findings are consistent
with the findings of earlier research that identified a statis-
tically significant correlation between EI and academic
performance (Grehan et al., 2011; Nasir and Masrur, 2010;
Parker et al., 2004).
The previous literature has shown that LA has an
inverse relationship with about every academic aspect of
students including their research achievement
(Onwuegbuzie and Jiao, 2004), reading ability (Jiao and
Onwuegbuzie, 2003), study habits (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie,
2001), learning styles (Onwuegbuzie and Jiao, 1998), and
GPA (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie, 1997). The findings of the
present study are consistent with those of the literature
cited above in that LA of the students has an inverse rela-
tionship with their various academic performances includ-
ing GPA. Therefore, it can be concluded that low or lack of
LA can be helpful for students in obtaining a higher GPA.
Thus, the academicians and library staff collectively
should take steps towards the reduction of students’ LA in
order to improve their performance on different academic
tasks.
Before running the Pearson’s correlation analysis, the
same results were expected regarding the relationship of EI
and LA among the respondents of the three subject areas.
However, the non-significant association of these two vari-
ables among the respondents of electrical engineering was
surprising which contradicted the result of SeyyedHosseini
et al. (2014). Similarly, results regarding the association
between LA and GPA among the respondents of electrical
Jan et al. 245
engineering and crop production sciences contradicted the
results of Jiao et al. (1996) and Jiao and Onwuegbuzie
(1997). These authors found significant association
between LA and the GPA of students. However, the results
regarding the association between EI, LA and GPA among
the social sciences students were supportive of the earlier
literature (Jiao and Onwuegbuzie 1997; Jiao et al., 1996;
SeyyedHosseini et al., 2014). The dissimilarities of the
results on the basis of the field/area of study might be due
to disciplinary or institutional differences. This might also
involve some other influencing academic/non-academic
variables that needed to be explored. Also, this research
should be replicated on students from other fields of study
to confirm this phenomenon.
An emotionally intelligent individual can better under-
stand a situation and, therefore, can express his/her judg-
ment more accurately. Thus, the emotionally intelligent
students had better emotional understanding and expres-
sion regarding the physical environment of the library as
well as their searching skills. Therefore, the engineering
students with higher EI level showed a higher level of LA
and vice versa.
Students with high EI are academically more motivated
(Roy et al., 2013) and increase their academic knowledge
which might possibly include knowledge about the library.
That might be the reason that the students with higher EI,
in the present study, experienced lower LA associated with
user knowledge. However, it was quite surprising that
none of the statements from library staff was found in
either positive or negative association with total EI score
among students of electrical engineering.
Conclusions
Results from the present and those from the previously
published research strongly suggest that emotional intelli-
gence is an extremely important factor for success in, not
only, academic but also non-academic life. Students with
high EI possess very low academic anxieties that keep
them better at their mental-health and cognitive perfor-
mance, particularly academic performance. The present
findings also suggest that better emotional perception and
other EI skills can be helpful in lowering overall LA. Thus,
these findings are useful for library professionals and
academicians to understand the important role of EI abili-
ties in LA of students. Because the more they know about
EI skills of their students, the more successfully they can
scheme and implement methods for lowering students’ LA
(Jan et al., 2016b).
The present findings have clearly indicated that LA of
students has an impact on their academic performance in
terms of their GPA. An observed inverse relationship sug-
gested that those students who were more library-anxious
achieved a lower GPA as compared to those who were less
anxious. Perhaps, the less anxious students made frequent
visits to the library as compared to those who were com-
paratively more library-anxious. Thus, it can be concluded
that for academic success and for a better utilization of
library resources it is important for students to be free from
library anxiety.
Further, it is concluded from the significant negative
relationship between emotional intelligence and library
anxiety that by increasing/decreasing one the other will
decrease/increase. That is, students with greater skills of
EI (perceiving, managing, and regulating of emotions) will
experience lower LA and vice versa. It is suggested that
enhancing emotional intelligence and information literacy
programs should be introduced which would have a greater
positive effect on students’ scholastic activities
Recommendations
1. According to the results regarding the relationship
between EI and LA, the university management
should consider launching EI training programs
and employ certified EI trainers to deliver these.
This will have an impact on reducing LA and
improving academic performance.
2. It is unclear from the current findings whether one
variable (LA/EI) is the cause of the other (EI/LA).
Therefore, further research is suggested on the
causal relationship between LA and EI.
3. The Schutte’s Emotional Intelligence Scale focuses
on emotions-related cognitive abilities. It is recom-
mended that utilizing other EI scales such as Bar-
On’s Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) or
Emotional and Social Competence Inventory
(ESCI) along with the AQAK Library Anxiety
Scale should further test the relationship between
EI and LA. This will discover whether, apart from
mental abilities, library anxiety has an association
with social skills and personality traits (e.g. EI
models of Goleman, 1998; and Bar-On, 1997) of
students or not.
4. On average, all the students were found to be
library-anxious. Therefore, it is recommended that
the library staff and teaching faculties should
develop and implement information literacy pro-
grams for students such as library orientation,
information-searching skills, subject focused infor-
mation literacy programs to reduce their LA.
5. The teaching faculty should integrate library-based
assignments in their curriculum so that their stu-
dents make frequent visits to the library for utiliz-
ing library resources. This will have a definite
impact on their academic performance.
6. The present study was purely quantitative in nature,
which had possibly involved respondent’s bias that
is always present in a self-report survey. To over-
come this limitation, the use of multi-method or
246 Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 52(1)
mixed method is suggested in future research
because the overall strength of a mixed-method
research is greater than either qualitative or quanti-
tative research (Creswell, 2009).
7. Future research with the same objectives should
be conducted on Master’s and Doctoral students of
different academic disciplines among various cul-
tural groups.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author biographies
Sajjad Ullah Jan holds a PhD from the Department of Information
Management, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He has
published more than a dozen articles in reputable national and
international journals. His areas of research include: library anxi-
ety; emotional intelligence; bibliometrics and scientometrics; and
user behavior. Recently, he joined the Department of Library and
Information Sciences, Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad.
Mumtaz Ali Anwar received a PhD from the University of
Pittsburg in 1973 and started a Master’s degree program in
Library and Information Science in 1974 at University of the
Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He has also served at King Abdul Aziz
University (Saudi Arabia), International Islamic University
(Malaysia), and Kuwait University (Kuwait). He has published
about a dozen books and a large number of research articles in
reputable international journals. His areas of research interest
include: information-seeking behavior; library anxiety; continu-
ous professional development; bibliometrics; and information
resources. Recently, he retired as honorary professor from the
University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.
Nosheen Fatima Warraich is an associate professor at the
Department of Information Management, University of the
Punjab, Lahore. She holds a PhD from the same school. She has
published many research papers in national and international
journals. She came back to her work after successful completion
of a postdoctoral fellowship.