Abstract:

Open Learning and Distance learning are excellent methods for teaching the adult learner. Because of the competing priorities of work, home, and school, adult learners desire a high degree of flexibility. The structure of distance learning gives adults the greatest possible control over time.

Increasingly option for online courses, raising the question of whether student experience in the traditional classroom provides them with the same academic readiness for online courses. In the traditional classroom setting, where learning is based on face-to-face human interaction, student success is grounded on the instructor’s ability to perceive nonverbal student cues, modify instructional methods accordingly, and provide timely answers to student questions. In the online environment, face-to-face human interaction and its commensurate benefits are absent. Instead, the written word is the communication tool. Because of this difference, students’ technological expertise, unmet needs for human contact, lack of self-motivation, or feelings of isolation can deter success in online courses. Learning is as much a function of a person’s emotional response to a learning environment as it is to the instructional method or classroom .The success of online students, however, has been primarily investigated in terms of student ease with computer technology or satisfaction with the program rather than intrinsic characteristics such as self-directedness, self-motivation, emotional self-regulation, or persistence. Moreover, emotional characteristics that have been linked to online success include persistent effort, internal locus of control, and self-efficacy.
These emotional predictors of online success correspond with emotional intelligence (EI). EI is self-awareness of one’s own feelings and needs, the ability to label them accurately, and to merge them with personal long-term goals as well as the needs and feelings of others in the current social situation.

In the corporate world, the EI that characterizes successful leaders is reflected in their self-awareness, self-management, and relationship building for everyday problem-solving and communication In addition to emotional predictors of online success.
This study aims to identify the degree of emotional intelligence among Open Learning and Distance learning students. This research tries to explore the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological characteristics of open Learning and Distance learning students.

It tries to answer the following question:
Is there any significant relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological characteristics of open Learning and Distance learning students?

The sample of this study consists of students at the four faculties of Education: IT, English Literature, and Business at the Arab Open University, Jordan branch.
Emotional intelligence scale will be used via the learning management system (LMS) to identify students’ emotional intelligence degree.