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Stress and Academic Performance

Satisfactory Essays

[pic][pic] STRESS AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: A STUDY AMONG PRE- SCIENCE STUDENTS IN UiTM NEGERI SEMBILAN Rafidah Kamarudin1, Azizah Aris2 and Nor aini Ibrahim3 1Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Negeri Sembilan 2Faculty of Information Technology and Quantitative Science, Universiti Teknologi MARA Johor 3Faculty of Information Technology and Quantitative Science, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, MALAYSIA ABSTRACT The present study is carried out to find out if there is any significant difference in the level of perceived stress among the students at the beginning, middle and end of the semester. We would also like to find out whether there is a correlation between the students’ level of perceived …show more content…

This is further supported by Ratana Saipanish (2003) who conducted a study on 686 medical students in the Faculty of Medicine; Ramathibodi Hospital, Thailand and finding has also shown that academic problems were found to be a major cause of stress among all students. The results indicated that the most prevalent source of academic stress was test/exam. Obviously, test or exam anxiety is one of the main causes to academic stress and most university students seem to be more emotionally vulnerable due to examinations. Increased anxiety from tests has a debilitating effect on students’ performance. When information generated by worrying about the test reduces the capacity available for performing the task, the result is that performance breaks down and the result becomes self-confirming (Fisher, 1994). Academic stress pervades the life of students, and tends to impact adversely their mental and physical health, and their ability to perform schoolwork effectively (Clark & Rieker, 1986; Felsten & Wilcox, 1992). Stress associated with academic activities has been linked to various negative outcomes such as poor health (Greenberger, 1981; Lesko & Summerfield, 1989), depression (Aldwin &Greenberger, 1987), and poor academic performance (Clark & Rieker, 1986; Linn & Zeppa, 1984). For example, Lesko and Summerfield (1989) found a significant positive correlation between the incidence of illness and the number of exams and

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