Title: Mediating effects of social and emotional skills on cognitive ability and academic achievement: Suzhou study

Authors: Myint Swe Khine; Yang Liu; Ernest Afari

Addresses: School of Education, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6120, Perth, Australia ' Shanghai Maritime University, 1550 Haigang Avenue, Shanghai, China ' Bahrain Teachers College, University of Bahrain, Zallaq, Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract: Educational planners and researchers believe that social and emotional skills play a crucial role in functioning well in the 21st century. This paper investigates how social and emotional skills mediate the relationships between students' cognitive ability and academic achievement. Recently, the OECD organised a large-scale international project to gather information about social and emotional skills among students in ten cities across nine countries. From the primary dataset released in 2019, information obtained from Suzhou, China (n = 3,604) was extracted to analyse the mediating effects. The study found strong linear relationships between cognitive ability and social and emotional skills in the older cohort group participants. The study also found that cognitive abilities mediate the relationship between social and emotional skills and academic achievement.

Keywords: cognitive abilities; academic achievement; social and emotional skills; mediation; China.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2024.135409

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2024 Vol.17 No.1, pp.16 - 27

Received: 20 Nov 2021
Accepted: 05 Nov 2022
Published online: 08 Dec 2023 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article