When Trent University’s Dr. James Parker was awarded one of the province’s first Premier’s Research Excellence Awards (PREA), the Psychology professor quickly gained recognition for his research potential – a trend that has continued throughout his impressive career.

In the time since receiving the initial PREA funding, Professor Parker has earned acclaim as one of the nation’s leading emotional intelligence (EI) experts, developing the IQ test used on the CBC’s “Test the Nation” television series and holding a prestigious Canada research chair in Emotional and Health.

A core project supported by Prof. Parker’s PREA hit close to home. Curious about the role EI plays in the academic achievement and persistence of older adolescents undergoing the transition from high-school to university, Prof. Parker began the Trent Academic Success and Wellness Project. 

This longitudinal study recruited newly registered undergraduates at Trent University at the start of their first academic year to complete a number of psychological tests connected to EI. Over six years, Prof. Parker’s team tracked the academic progress of the close to 3,800 undergraduates at Trent and according to Prof. Parker, “results showed that, despite having comparable age, course load, and high-school grades, students who entered university with lower EI were significantly more likely to fail academically or withdraw from the university entirely than their higher EI peers.”

Today, Prof. Parker and his team have extended their original Success and Wellness Project by reaching out to almost 400 of the original participants in the study for a follow-up study to investigate how much their EI has changed since their late teens, and how much the original EI score they received as undergrads predicts their wellness as they approach middle age.

“We have just started to mine this unique data-set, another wonderful dividend of the PREA,” explains Prof. Parker. “But in a recent presentation at the International Congress of Applied Psychology in Montreal this past June, we noted that our participant’s EI levels remained remarkably stable over the almost two-decade period. Although it is only a preliminary finding, we also found that EI predicted the quality of romantic relationships—an important part of wellness.