Relationship between cognitive ability, personality, psychological well-being and self-esteem among hearing-impaired students: The moderating role of emotional intelligence

Hearing-impaired students tend to face obstacle in communication due to limitations of social-emotional experiences as well as social skills aspect which potentially influenced emotional intelligence, cognitive ability, personality, psychological wellbeing and self-esteem. This study aimed to examine: (i) the level of cognitive ability dimensions, personality traits, psychological well-being dimensions, emotional intelligence dimensions and self-esteem of hearing-impaired students, (ii) the
differences in cognitive ability, personality traits, psychological well-being, emotional
intelligence and self-esteem of the hearing-impaired students according to gender and
parents’ hearing status, (iii) the relationship between cognitive ability dimensions, personality traits, psychological well-being dimensions, emotional intelligence dimensions and self-esteem, (iv) emotional intelligence as a moderating variable and lastly, (v) factors that significantly predict students’ hearing-impaired self-esteem. Respondents were 163 hearing-impaired students from five polytechnics and were selected via simple random sampling. The descriptive and inferential statistics were
analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings of the study showed that there were significant relationships between variables in the study. There was a significant difference in cognitive ability and self-esteem according to parent’s hearing status. There were also significant relationships between self-esteem and extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. The study also revealed
significant relationships between self-esteem and dimensions of emotional intelligence
(interpersonal and general mood) and dimensions of psychological well-being. Emotional intelligence moderated the relationships between memory, attention, neuroticism, openness, conscientiousness, self-acceptance, autonomy, purpose in life, environmental mastery and personal growth with self-esteem. The findings also showed interpersonal and agreeableness dimensions significantly contributed towards
self-esteem. In conclusion, this study contributed towards enhancing the knowledge
about hearing-impaired students’ self-esteem and its relation to their cognitive ability,
personality traits, psychological well-being and emotional intelligence specifically in the field of developmental psychology and special education area in Malaysia