Stoliker and Lafreniere (2015), did a study that measured the degree of stress students have through their college experience using the Perceived Stress Scale, which measures the amount of stress considered to be a stressful situation. The total number of participants were 141 undergraduate students and each participant was asked questions and the answer had a ranking of 0 meaning never and 4 very
(February 2014) Similar to this study I used a stress scale although, I reduced mine to a scale between: 1-5. “5” being the highest level of stress. The Stress in America study used a Perceived Stress Scale that participants self-monitored their stress levels by answering where they would answer such questions as “how often have you felt irritable and angry in the last month” and they could answer,(very often, sometimes, never etc.) For my purposes I asked myself the following three questions and used the following rating system to determine my stress levels that day.(Angus, n.d.)
Over the last twelve weeks, many students have participated in their own Single Subject Design (SSD) contain stress levels throughout each week of the semester. Throughout this design, the reversal design method was used throughout the fall semester. In this study, there was many high and low scores on the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), which is calculated as the following: zero=4, one=three, two=two, three=one, and four= zero. Many questions were answered on a scale of never (zero) to very often (four) pertaining to how often have you felt difficulties were piling so high that you could not overcome them, been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly, and much more. So, also, this study was a process to see how effective some interventions helped reduce your stressful semester.
It was confirmed by Perceived Stress Scale in the questionnaire for every student. Therefore, the variables were appropriate for the hypothesis.
The article A Stress Management Primer for College Administrators by Robert C. Cloud examines good stress, eustress, to bad stress, distress. Cloud focuses the article for college administrators; however, the information can be of use to anyone in a position dealing with a lot of people and stressors on a daily basis, such as teachers. Cloud uses a few professionals to define what stress is, such as Hans Selye who is an endocrinologist who spent many years studying what stressors do to the human body. Selye first defines stress in 1946 as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it to adapt, whether that demand produces pleasure or pain” (Cloud, 1991, p 31). 30 years later Selye readjusts his definition of stress and defines
Stress and anxiety in the average college student. Selye (1936) defined stress as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change” (The American Institute of Stress, 2017). Stress can lead to feelings of anxiety. Anxiety is a normal part of life, but can be considered a type of worry or fear that can inhibit everyday life. College students show higher stress/anxiety than average individuals. Major sources of stress are from new responsibilities, campus living, money issues, and classwork (Ross, Niebling, & Heckert, 1999). There have been a number of studies circled around how stress can affect college students. Females and males show differences in anxiety/stress in college. (Misra and McKean (2000)) found that females
Like many of the questionnaires utilized for research in the articles used for this literature review, it was anonymous, and administered and collected during class. This form of data collection provided high turn in rates allowing researchers to have a wide study scale. According to Hicks, T., & Heastie, S., contrasting levels of stress and coping mechanisms were present in these students. It was noted that traditional college students experience more psychological stress than their nontraditional student counterparts. In addition, during the first year of college, the amount of stress experienced by students is the highest in comparison to stress in the remainder of the years. These results are especially important because it stresses the need for a strong health and wellness center within colleges and universities.
Stress is unavoidable, no matter the situation, location, or time; stress is always present. Stress is found in higher levels during the duration in which students attend college. It is predictably higher among college students, freshmans in particular, because of the extreme expectations set upon them by their parents and, of course, society. The need to please their parents, longing for success in life, and being able to sustain a reasonable income in the future, all of which falls into the hands of college students who are making critical decisions which may decide the outcome for a large portion of their lives. If these students end up hating their future jobs, the stress of having to go back into college to study for a new career
Student stress may be seen as part of daily but the percentage of students feeling is high continuing to climb. A poll conducted mtvU/Associated press (2009) showed 85% of students experienced daily stress, a 5% increase from the year before. The mtvU/Associated press (2009) survey revealed the leading stress factors were school work (77%) and grades (74%). Along with this, 69% of the students
Stress. Cohen, S., and Williamson, G. (1988) Perceived Stress Scale is a survey that measures percieved stress. This survey contains ten questions pertaining to ask particpants about their stress and there are five answer choices the participant can choose from. The survey score ranges from 0-4. (see Appendix C).
Stress is no new phenomenon. It’s been around as long as man and has captivated scholars and physicians alike. With the growing demand for degrees in the professional world comes the growth of the number of college students. The relationship between stress and college students has become the subject of on-going research. Several studies show that stress in college students is increasing with time and the authors of those studies are attributing this to an increased number of students. Other research seems to indicate that it isn’t necessarily the stress that is increasing but the awareness of it. Increased awareness of stress, and its unique toll on individuals, allows colleges and students to recognize
A recent survey by the National Union of Students indicates that an 80% of Higher Education students report stress as the most often experienced feeling of mental distress, with only 36% of distressed students reaching out for help (NUS, 2013). Another survey which took place in a UK university suggests that all three years of an undergraduate’s time in a university is a period of heightened psychological distress, and even if fluctuations in levels of stress are present it never reaches pre-admission levels (Bewick et al, 2010). Frequent stress responses have shown to weaken the immune system, act as a risk factor toward developing depression, coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity, even oxidative stress which damages DNA and sets the ground for inflammatory diseases (Djuric et al, 2008). Therefore it is not an issue which should be overlooked as it may appear not that threatening in the short term.
Which collects the health statistics of students from universities all around the world every second year, reported that 40.2 percent of Santa Clara University students identified that stress affected their individual academic performance during the last 12 months of their studies (Temple,2011). Temple (2011) reported a survey conducted in 2004 that assessed the overall well-being of 47,202 undergraduates nationwide. The findings were that 32.4 percent of students recognized stress as the main obstacle to their academic performance. This was said to be above the common cold, depression, death of a relative, sexual assault and eating disorders. Stress is “once considered as the nation’s number one health epidemic; prolonged stress can lead to ulcers, heart disease, stroke, major depression and to a shorter life span” (Temple, 2011).
Stress is the body’s General response to any intense physical, emotional or mental demand placed on it by on self or others. Anything can be stressor if it last long enough is perceived as stress. Stress is any situation that evokes negative thoughts and feelings in a person. Being a student can be the most interesting time of one’s life. New friends, new places, new challenges can make a student life stress full. Most students will feel the effect of stress at some point in their studies and a small number of students may feel stressed or depressed for most of the time. Financial worries, dept, exam pressure, burden of course work and relationship problem create lot of pressure on students.
Nontraditional student numbers continue to rise on college campuses and few institutions meet the mental health needs for this special group of students (Carney-Crompton & Tan, 2002). It is the purpose of this study to examine both the stressors (i.e. triggers of the stress response) and perceived stress levels between traditional and nontraditional students.
During my time in high school almost every day I would hear my friends complain about being stressed, and often times it had to do with school. At the time I did not fully understand what they meant by being “stressed”, until the night of the graduation party that is when I began to understand where my pals where coming from. According to the article “stress” found on the Psychology today website, “stress is simply a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our physical or mental equilibrium. In other words, it 's an omnipresent part of life.”