RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND MOTIVATION: A RESEARCH ON TOURISM PROGRAM STUDENTS

Emotional intelligence is defined as “the ability of an individual to monitor his own and others' feelings and to use the knowledge gained to direct one's thoughts and behaviors” (Salovey, Mayer and Caruso, 2008: 504)”. In this sense, it can be thought that applications for improving emotional intelligence in providing motivation can be beneficial. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the emotional intelligence and motivation. The sample group in the study consists of 203 Tourism Faculty and the Anamur Vocational School Tourism Program who are undergraduate students and they are also tourism sector employees. In the scope of this study, Emotinal Intelligence Scale (ETS) developed by Wong and Law and Motivation Scale devoloped by Dündar, ？zutku ve Ta？p？nar (2007 ) have been selected as the data gathering method. IBM SPSS 17 Demo and Lisrel 8.72 package programs were used in the analysis of the datas. As a result of the research, there was statistical positively significant relationship between emotional intelligence and motivation. In addition, it is observed that emotional intelligence has a positive effect on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation