College Vitality as measured by the SEHS-HE and a Behavior Checklist predicts success in diverse first-year college students

College Vitality as measured by the SEHS-HE and a Behavior Checklist predicts success in diverse first-year college students

Academic competence is tightly linked to social and emotional competence in first-year college students (Wyatt & Bloemker, 2013). The Social Emotional Health Survey, or SEHS-HE, assesses emotional intelligence as a measure of co-vitality, which is made up of four aspects: belief-in-self, belief-in-others, emotional competence, and engaged living (Furlong, You, Shishim & Dowdy, 2016). Emotional intelligence factors such as these have been shown to be essential for understanding the successful transition from high school to college, especially for ethnically diverse students (Brackett, Rivers, & Salovey, 2011). Persistence, retention, and academic achievement are all reliant on emotional intelligence skills and the SEHS-HE has proven a reliable and valid measure of it (Jones, You & Furlong, 2013). In the present study, the SEHS-HE is predicted by a College Student Behavior Checklist (CSBC), r = .61, p < .05. The CSBC includes 3 main structural components. The primary component is a set of successful first-year college student behaviors: College Vitality. College Vitality includes asking for help from professor and from peers, reassessing study habits, going to office hours, studying in a group, speaking up in class, planning more, reading before class, going to tutoring and testing centers, and being aware of grades.