EFFECTS OF STRESS

Effect of Stress on Academic Performance



Effect of Stress on Academic Career

Introduction

Stress can affect human beings in myriad ways and each type of stress is characterized by the impact it leaves on the physical and psychological health of a person. Likewise, students also face some form of stress which not only affects their mental and physical health but also affects their academic performance. Realizing that a positive correlation exists between the amount of stress perceived by the student in a semester and the result of the same semester, a study was conducted in which twenty-five college students participated. The students were required to fill out a survey questionnaire in which the stress scale was also included. In addition to this questionnaire, students were also asked to fill out a demographic data sheets which included factors such as gender, age, previous grades and classes. In the end, the students were required to rank some given stress factors in order of their importance (Kelly et al, 2001).

Discussion

In an effort to overcome the obstacles hindering the way to achieve academic success, students have to face a lot of difficulties. In order to achieve success in college career, a student needs much more than merely studying. A number of stressors, for instance, sleep deprivation financial problems, time management, social activities, and a minority of students even having children, can pose a great threat to their college careers. The ordinal scale of measuring a student's performance is GPA, which stands for Grade Point Average. A number of factors such as entrance in graduate schools and class ranks are determined by the student's GPA. A number of studies have been conducted to identify the correlation between stressors and a student's GPA.

Hatcher and Prus (1991) have referred to these stress factors as academic situational constraints. In this study, the researchers analyzed a number of factors which can affect the academic performance of a student to the worst possible extent Factors including job responsibilities, sorority activities or having a boyfriend or girlfriend, wastes the student's precious time and this in turn affects the academic performance. An unnecessary variable which was also studied during this study was that, in order to participate in sorority or athletic activities, university students must also maintain a considerable level of GPA. This factor by itself could attribute to these students GPAs being higher than the average college student” (Trockel et al, 2000).

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