Research proposal

Impact of stress on students academic performance at

university level

Submitted by:
Simra Tariq
1427-316144

Supervisor:
Sir kalimullah
Department of Psychology
Preston University, Islamabad
Fall (2019)
Abstract
Introduction

Stress is characterized as the individual's mental and physiological reaction to the impression of
an interest or challenge. Students face different difficulties, troubles and a mess of weight in the
present focused world. Students get the opportunity to be prepared in taking care of pressure and
ought to get out from it. Stress is the technique by which an individual responds when opened to
inner or outer challenges."The creature forms various frameworks to organize such versatile
reactions both at precise and cell levels" by this, stress has direct impact on the cerebrum and the
entire life systems of the body all things considered inability to adjust to an upsetting condition
can bring about mind glitch, physiological issue and furthermore numerous zones of mental test's
in the from of misery, tension and burnout.

Stress rises when there are burden on the person which outperform his available assets. In case
weight is remorseless and extended, it can lessen academic execution, baffle with an
understudy's capacity to incorporate into and add to grounds life. Scientists have characterized
worry as the understanding of ambiguity between ecological weight and individual's capacity to
satisfy these requests. Scientists more often than not characterize worry as the bothersome
reaction individuals need to outrageous strain or other kind of weight put on them. Stress
happens when an individual arrangement with a circumstance that they perceive as overpowering
and can't oversee.

One model that is significant for understanding worry among college understudies is the Person-
Environment Model. This model proposes that people can think about distressing occasions as
requesting or startling. Impression of instructive objectives as a test brings pressure and thus this
pressure makes a feeling of ability and improved learning capacity.

Stress is seen as a bit of understudies' life and can influence the understudies adjusting
frameworks according to the solicitations of insightful life. This is so in light of the fact that
insightful work is always drilled with troubling activities. Understudies reported their experience
of high insightful stress at obvious events in each semester which comes about in light of
preparing and stepping through exams, class situating challenge, and acing gigantic proportion of
outline in an almost constrained amount of time.

Among students, a strong relationship is found between upsetting life events and reduced
academic execution. Numerous examinations have tended to this issue and it was discovered that
numerous mental issues, for example, despondency, uneasiness, and stress affect the understudy
scholarly accomplishment. Scholarly worry among understudies has for some time been a point
of research study and analysts have perceived distinctive significant stressors which incorporate
exorbitant assignments, unfortunate challenge among class understudies, dread of
disappointment in instructive accomplishment and absence of pocket cash, poor relational
connections in class or with speakers, and family issues. Among Institutional level stressors are
stuffed auditoriums, the semester framework, and deficient assets to perform scholarly work.
Understudies experience stress in view of different various segments including issues of time the
load up, cash related issues, participation with speakers, individual passionate goals, social lead,
modification in the academic culture nonappearance of sincerely strong system attestation
process, raised necessity of watchmen, instructive arrangement contained complex thoughts,
forbidden school timings, uneven understudy teacher extent, physical state of study lobby,
terrible understudy instructor correspondence, unbending norms of control, an extreme number
of or complex assignments, indicating method, unconcerned instructor's attitude and
overemphasis on deficiencies rather than perceiving characteristics.

As indicated by (Wheeler 2007,2), stress is material science word which refers to the amount of
force on an object and it relates, all things considered, regarding how certain issues that convey
force applied to human life. Examples financial difficulties, wellbeing challenge issues, clashes
with companions, all carry force or pressure on person’s body-mind and spirit. Stress is
explained as “An uncertain reaction to external and internal factors” that means a negative or
positive reaction to environmental stimuli.

Stress has turned into fundamental point in scholastic encompass and in addition in our general
public. Generally understudies perform ineffectively when they confront worry in their scholarly
life, the stressor might be hard assignments, educator’s strategy for conveying the discourse (Chu
and Choi, 2005).

How understudies encounter academic stress relies on upon individual and social components
and some scholarly stressors are the consequences of demanding social points of view. Scholistic
stressors, for example, examinations, outrageous homework, peer extraordinary exertion time
administration are basic in all societies (Abouserie, 1999; Millar and Gallagher, 2000).
Academic stress is connected with academic procrastination, when understudies confront push
identifying with their reviews then they attempt to defer their errand or assignments given by
their educators (Ang, 2009).

Academic stress is psychological distress regarding some normal dissatisfaction connected with
scholistic disappointment or even ignorance to the alternatives of such disappointment. Students
need to confront numerous scholastic requests, for instance, college test, noting inquiries in the
class, screening advancement in school subjects, circumspect what the instructor is
procrastination, restricting with different colleagues, fulfilling educators and guardians scholarly
trust.

Students drive is imperative premise of worry for an extensive sum understudies (Hashim, 2003).
Acknowledgement wellsprings of scholarly related anxiety have incorporated dismay of falling
after with assignments, revelation the inspiration to study, time weights, monetary feelings of
dread, and pain about scholastic expertise (Tyrell, 1999). This can influence psychological
wellness, enthusiastic state and scholarly execution, once push has turned out to be gathered
contrarily or has turned out to be extreme.
Those who Disagreed:

(Ashok & Ph.D., 2018)

1. Stress is a frustrating condition where it contains an excess of work and an overload

which reduces the concentration, mentality and the normal working condition of any
students. This study examines the impact of stress on students and stress management
among students. The main objectives were to ascertain or identify the extent to which
stress affects students academic success, health and general lifestyle, as well as to inquire
about the effects of existing stress in students. A quantitative method was used in
gathering and analyzing the data. For this purpose, questionnaires were distributed to
students, who consisted of Post Graduate qualification. The result obtained shows that
nearly 40% of students feel stress in getting support from the faculty members, fear of
examination, lack of understanding the subject and feeling more stressed in academic
performance. Stress can however be managed using various stress revealing techniques
and also introducing stress management course as part of the students extracurricular
activities.

(Koutsimani, 2019)

2. Burnout is a psychological syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion, feelings of

cynicism and reduced personal accomplishment. In the past years there has been
disagreement on whether burnout and depression are the same or different constructs, as
they appear to share some common features (e.g., loss of interest and impaired
concentration). However, the results so far are inconclusive and researchers disagree with
regard to the degree to which we should expect such overlap. The aim of this systematic
review and meta-analysis is to examine the relationship between burnout and depression.
Our research aims to clarify the relationship between burnout–depression and burnout–
anxiety relationships. Our findings revealed no conclusive overlap between burnout and
depression and burnout and anxiety, indicating that they are different and robust
constructs.

(Chacón-Cuberos, 2019)

3. Several research works have indicated the connection between physical action (PA),
adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD) and wellbeing. This expressive, non-
exploratory, and cross-sectional study intends to dissect the relationship between these
factors in an example made out of 515 college understudies, utilizing as fundamental
instruments the KIDMED, PAQ-An and the Scale of Academic Stress. Results
demonstrate that the college understudies investigated indicated more significant levels of
scholarly worry for ladies, and particularly in the scholastic commitments and
 correspondence of possess thoughts. What's more, it was indicated that those college
understudies that had a weight list (BMI) related with being overweight or under-weight
were the respondents with more elevated levels of pressure. At last, the understudies with
a low adherence to MD had higher scores for pressure related with the correspondence of
their own thoughts, while PA was not identified with scholastic pressure. At the point
when sex and BMI factors were controlled in the relapse model, no affiliations were
gotten among pressure and diet quality. This investigation shows fascinating
ramifications with regards to the treatment of scholarly pressure. In spite of the fact that
pressure was not related with diet and physical action, it was connected to a more
regrettable condition of wellbeing related with conditions of being overweight, being of
exceptional intrigue the treatment of worry in ladies.
Neutral:

(Heckman & Lim, 2014)

1. Concerns that debt loads and other financial worries negatively affect student wellness
are a top priority for many university administrators. Factors related to financial stress
among college students were explored using the Roy Adaptation Model, a conceptual
framework used in health care applications. Responses from the 2010 Ohio Student
Financial Wellness Survey were analyzed using proportion tests and multivariate logistic
regressions. The results show that financial stress is widespread among students – 71% of
the sample reported feeling stress from personal finances.
Financial stress, and its associated negative health and academic outcomes, is a serious
concern for college students today. While the effects of stress have been well documented
by prior research, factors associated with financial stress among college students have not
been adequately explored. This study provides an exploratory examination of financial
stressors that are associated with increased likelihood of reporting financial stress, as well
as possible factors (e.g., financial self-efficacy) that could be targeted to help students
respond to financial stressors. Future research should use experimental designs to test for
causal relationships between the variables explored in this study.

(Rasheed & Naqvi, 2017)

2. The majority of students (85%) perceived examinations as a stressor. Most of the students
(64%) had perceived moderate stress that increased as students progressed from
preparatory year to 4th year. It declined in students of 5th and 6th year. The prevalence of
stress related was reported at 39.58%. Highest prevalence of stress-induced self-
medication was reported from College of Nursing (59.09%) and lowest (29.69%) from
clinical pharmacy. Most common drug used to self-medicate during stress was caffeine
(49.5%). The PSS score was significantly associated with colleges and study levels.
Students studying in health cluster colleges reported high academic stress and self-
medication practice. The major stressors identified were examination and course load.
 Student counseling sessions and counseling by pharmacists regarding self-care may help
in the reduction of such stressors and may promote responsible self-medication. Self-
evaluation and quality assurance process of curriculum may highlight areas for
improvement in the courses. This may help in lowering academic stress among students.

(Agolla, 2009)

3. This research finding depends on the reactions acquired from the college understudies at
a higher learning organization (University) in Botswana. This paper researched the
stressors, side effects and impacts that are probably going to be experienced by the
college understudies in higher foundations (Universities). Stressors identified with time,
scholastic weight, and scholarly situations were investigated. A sum of 320 understudies
took part in this examination. Information was gathered through self-managed surveys
that were arbitrarily disseminated to the understudies during talk time. Information got
was dissected utilizing expressive measurements and Tables. It was discovered that,
scholarly remaining burden, insufficient assets, low inspiration, terrible showing in
scholastic, persistent lackluster showing in scholarly, stuffed auditoriums, and
vulnerability of landing position subsequent to moving on from the college lead to worry
among understudies. It is trusted that, these discoveries will support the individual
understudies, speakers, vocation and directing focuses, and the college managers to set up
systems that alleviate the impacts of worry at the University. Furthermore, the finding
will likewise prod an insightful discussion on scholarly worry among understudies in
higher establishments. We along these lines propose that, different scientists ought to
think about utilizing triangulation technique. The restriction of our examination was the
example size and absence of topographical inclusion since our investigation just focused
on one college. Consequently, the discoveries of this examination can't be summed up
and in that capacity the scientists propose replication of this investigation utilizing bigger
examples from different pieces of the world to approve our discoveries.

Those who Agreed:

(khan, 2013)

1. Current study explored the effect of academic stress on students performance and the
impact of demographic variables like gender, age and educational level. A sample of one
hundred and fifty students was taken from different universities located in Islamabad.
Seventy-five respondents were males and the remaining seventy-five were females. The
results showed significant effect of academic stress on students performance. There was a
non-significant difference between male and female university students on scores on the
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). A significant difference between junior and senior students
was found on the PSS. Academic stress was found to be higher in younger students than
 older students. There was a non-significant difference on PSS scores among students
when stress was measured at the beginning and at the end of the semester.

(Hj Ramli & Alavi, 2018)

2. Academic stress is the most common emotional or mental state that students experience
during their studies. Stress is a result of a wide range of issues, including test and exam
burden, a demanding course, a different educational system, and thinking about future
plans upon graduation. A sizeable body of literature in stress management research has
found that self-regulation and being mindful will help students to cope up with stress and
dodge long-term negative consequence, such as substance abuse. The present study aims
to investigate the influence of academic stress, self-regulation, and mindfulness among
undergraduate students in Klang valley, Malaysia, and to identify mindfulness as the
mediator between academic stress and self-regulation. For this study, a total of 384
undergraduate students in Klang valley, Malaysia were recruited. Using Co relational
analysis, results revealed that there was a significant relationship between academic
stress, self-regulation, and mindfulness.

(Daniel, 2018)

3. This research study was carried out to assess the perceived impact of stress on academic
performance among undergraduate nursing students of the University of Jos. Results
revealed that the common stressors found among undergraduate students and their
(stressors') degree of influence on academic performance are finance; M = 3.5, exam; M
= 3.5 among others had a strong influence, course load; M = 2.7 continuous assessment;
2.8 mean among others had a mild influence while overcrowded classroom and others
fairly influence nursing students academic performance. The academic performance of
undergraduate nursing students was satisfactory with 189 (81.7%) of the students having
a cumulative grade point average between second class upper and second class lower.
Nursing students perceived stress to have a negative impact on their academic
performance. The researcher concluded that stress is perceived by undergraduate nursing
students of the University of Jos, to have a negative impact on their academic
performance and recommended that the university/department introduce stress coping
skills in the planning of undergraduate curriculum among others. Nursing students
recommended that lecturers should be more friendly; financial burden be reduced on
students, among others, as ways to help them cope with stress.
Problem Statement

Research questions

 To access the level of stress among university students.

 To distinguish the factors causing stress among the students.
 To analyze the impact of stress on academic performance.

Hypothesis

1. Academic stress will be higher in female students as compared to male students.

2. Academic stress will be higher in younger students than older students.
3. Academic stress will be higher in less qualified students (junior students) than highly
qualified students (senior students).
4. Academic stress will be higher among students at the end of semester than at the
beginning of semester.

Significance of study

Objective of the study

1. To see the relationship between Stress and Academic Performance among university
students.
2. To see the gender differences with relevance to Stress and Academic Performance.
3. To see the difference among government and private universities with relevance to Stress
and Academic Performance.
4. /

Research Methodology
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