New Perspectives in Science Education

This research starts from the assumption that emotional intelligence plays an important role in learning mathematics, as it helps students manage stress, anxiety, and interpersonal relationships in the classroom. Within this framework, the study explores the concept of emotional competence as an applicable aspect of emotional intelligence that can be developed through pedagogical interventions. The aim of the research was to examine whether more frequent use of group work in mathematics teaching influences the development of students’ emotional competence and whether there is a relationship between emotional competence and academic achievement in mathematics.The study was conducted as a quasi-experimental design with a sample of 32 sixth-grade primary school students. In the first phase, class 6.a served as the experimental group and class 6.b as the control group, while in the second phase the group roles were reversed. The intervention included more frequent group work and project-based tasks during the instructional units Triangle and Quadrilateral. Emotional competence was assessed using the UEK-D questionnaire, and academic achievement was measured by a mathematics skills test and final grades. The data were analyzed using the Mann–Whitney and Wilcoxon tests and Spearman’s correlation.The results showed no statistically significant changes in the level of emotional competence after the intervention, nor between the experimental and control groups. However, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between emotional competence and mathematics achievement (ρ = 0.530; p = 0.002), confirming that emotional skills play an important role in academic performance. A particularly interesting finding relates to the decline in positive attitudes toward group work among students who were more frequently engaged in collaborative activities, indicating the need for a deeper understanding of the emotional dynamics within group work.