How is Rising Stress Impacting College Students?
In support of the general belief that more college students are suffering the effects of stress and need additional coping resources, the studies referenced here provide a long term tracking of the number of students seeking help for stress-related issues what those issues may be, if stress affects performance and how stress is related to a college student’s life as a whole.
A study by Sherry Benton, published in Professional Psychology; Research and Practice was conducted over a 13 year period at Kansas State University, and used students who sought help as the basis for the study. The study writers indicated that they realized from the onset that those students seeking help, in general, have more complicated problems of a more serious nature than the students who don’t seek help. Even so, they found disturbing increases in several areas of student mental health.
In study conducted by Ranjita Misra and published online by the American Journal of Health Studies, a survey was conducted of 249 randomly-selected undergraduate students. The survey asked about distinct areas, Academic Stress, Leisure Satisfaction, time Management and Trait and State Anxiety.
These studies point out the need for stress management techniques for college students, with the Benton study revealing a real need for college counseling centers to be more aware and prepared to service clients with increasingly complex and severe problems. In the 13 year period of the study, the number of students with depression and suicidal thoughts doubled. Students seeking help after a sexual assault quadrupled, and the number of students dealing with health problems doubled. Surprisingly, three items previously though of as high priority concerns; substance abuse, eating disorders and chronic mental illness remained steady.
In the Misra study, the strongest factor affecting academic stress was time management, and the author strongly suggested that training in time management be recommended more often by faculty and counselors. The author also admits that the study would have been stronger if it had incorporated consideration of “work and life stress, employment status, social support and coping mechanisms,” – a fact borne out by the Benton study.
Interestingly, in the small study done by Laura P. Womble at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, no correlation between stress and a student’s GPA was found, which was in direct contradiction to some established research. Womble conceded that even previous studies that considering such factors as social activities, job responsibilities and personal relationships do not reflect the increasing stressor on today’s college students such and the family and financial responsibilities of the student who returns after being out in the work world for a while.
Womble did find health-related issues to be the main cause of lowered GPAs in her study – an issue that was considered a source of stress in the Benton study. With nutrition an important factor, the single most influential factor was sleep, or lack thereof. Whether caused by social activities, job responsibilities, family duties or poor health, the less sleep a student got, the lower the grades. Even class attendance could be considered a negative factor, especially if a student who has been up late has to rise early for a 7 AM class. She even reveals that exercise, normally considered a healthy habit, can become an unhealthy obsession for the college student, also causing lack of rest.
In conclusion, the results of these three studies do indicate that stress, and stress-related problems are on the rise for the college student of today. They also point out that proper stress management techniques, presented to students by faculty or counselors, can mitigate the effects, but that in more severe cases, the intervention of the on-campus Counseling Center is needed.
