Stress Factors Among College Students: An Analysis

Research Aim

College is considered as an exciting and new time, but it has been seen that the level of stress factors among the college students have been increasing massively. Some specific reason can be made responsible for increasing stress among the college students. Thus, the research has been taken into consideration to find the reason of stress factors.

The main aim of the research process is to analyze and evaluate the effects of various stress factors among the college students. This research process will be helpful for  the identification of various reasons that are contributions towards the increase of stress factors among the college students.

The major objectives of the research are as follows:

• The first objective is to identify the reasons of stress among the college students.
• The second objective is to find possible solutions to reduce the stress factors among the college students.
• The third objective is to develop some recommendations for the college students to avoid or control the stress factors.

For the students of colleges, stress has become one of the major negative factors that are affecting the study as well as the personal life of the college students. College life is a new and exciting life for the students where endless opportunities are waiting for them. In this process, stress is a major obstacle that can stop their career growth (Mahmoud et al. 2012). It has been seen that that there are many factors that are causing immense stress for the college students. Some of the major stress factors are discussed in this section. The financial condition of a student is a major reason for stress. Studying in a college is expensive. It can be seen that many students get financial help from their parents to pay the college fees and others experiences. On the other hand, some students are there who have to carry on a low-paying job in order to run their college expenses (Yan, Li and Sui 2014). Thus, these types of students suffer from massive stress for their financial conditions. Relationship is another major cause of stress for the college students as relationships with friends or others can be a stress factor. It can happen as some of these relations are unhealthy or external source of stress threat these relationships. At the age of emotional development, maintaining these kinds of relationships can be stressful for the college students (Wilcox et al. 2012). It has been seen that the physical and health conditions of college students often compromised as they develop various habits like unhealthy eating, sacrifice of sleep for excessive study pressure and social activities, consumption of alcohols and different kinds of drugs and others (Chao 2012).  For all these reasons, students become physically weak and they fail to concentrate in their tasks. Due to all these reasons, their academic performance becomes affected and the students become stressful. Thus, this is another major stress factor. Another major stress factor is academic grade. Poor academic performance on a constant basis leads the students to the fear of failing in the examination (Bland et al. 2012). This is considered as the largest contributor to the stress level of the students. This kind of stress often leads to depression and students starts absenting from classes. These are the major stress factors for college students. This study will be helpful to develop some solutions or strategies in order to solve these kinds of stress related issues among the college students.

Research Objectives

Conceptual Framework: There are two kinds of research theories; they are Positivism research and Interpretivism research. Positivism theories refer to the quantitative and scientific approach while interpretisim theories refer to qualitative and humanistic approach. Based on the nature of the topic, the researcher will adopt the positivism theory for this research process as various surveys and statistical data interpretation of large amount of sample will be involved in this research process (Goldkuhl 2012).

Research Method: There are two types of research methods; they are Quantitative and Qualitative method of research process. For this particular research program, quantitative method of research process will be selected. There is reason behind this selection of method. The research process involves the sample size of 150 college students and there will be statistical evaluation of the collected data. Thus, quantitative methods are appropriate (Pierce and Sawyer 2013).

Data Collection Method: As per the quantitative method, primary data will be collected. For this reason, a questionnaire will be used to collect information from the students of Plymouth University. Apart from this, personal interviews will be conducted with the faculty members of this college in order to get more in-depth information (Team, Network and Assessment 2012).

Sampling Technique: There are two kinds of sampling techniques; they are Probability sampling and Non-Probability sampling. For this project research, probability sampling will be used. The reason is that the questionnaires will be distributed among the students on a random basis (Gonçalves et al. 2012).

Data Presentation and Analysis: The collected primary data will be analyzed with the help of statistical tools. Microsoft Excel will be used for the analysis of collected data. Different kinds of tables, graphs and charts will be used to present the data. The analyzed data will be presented in various tabular formats. Apart from this, pie charts and others charts will be use for the presentation of data (Duffield et al. 2014).

Limitations: Two of the major limitations of this research are the lack of time and lack of practical exposure. There is a specific set timeline for the research program. Due to stiff deadline, there is not enough time for the research process. This is a major limitation. In addition, the lack of practical exposure of the researcher in the particular topic is another limitation. However, with the help of proper time management strategy, the researcher will be able to complete the research project properly.

Timeline: There is a set timeline for the research process. Based on the provided time, specific time will be allocated for each research activity. The research timeline is shown below:

Research Activities	1-2	2-4	4-6	6-8	8-10	10-12	12-14
Formulation  of  Research Topic	ü
Completion of Introduction and background	ü
Research Aim and Objective	ü
Literature Review
Collection of primary Data
primary Data Analysis
Interpretation and Presentation of Data Analysis
Findings  and Analysis
Conclusion
Final Submission of  the research Paper

Ethical Consideration: For the completion of this research, the researcher will follow all the ethical considerations. The researcher will use the authentic sources for the collection of data. The researcher will not make any manipulation in the data analysis to get the desired results. The researcher needs to make it sure that there is not any biasness in the research program in order t get favorable results.

Conclusion

The main aim of the research is to develop analyze the effects of various stress factors on the college students. For this reason, primary data will be collected from two sources. First, questionnaire will be distributed among 150 students of Plymouth University on a random basis. Second, the faculty of the college will be interviewed to get first hand data. After the data collection, they will be analyzed with the help of Microsoft Excel to get the results.

References

Acharya, A.S., Prakash, A., Saxena, P. and Nigam, A., 2013. Sampling: Why and how of it. Indian Journal of Medical Specialties, 4(2), pp.330-333.

Bland, H.W., Melton, B.F., Welle, P. and Bigham, L., 2012. Stress tolerance: New challenges for millennial college students. College Student Journal, 46(2), pp.362-376.

Chao, R.C.L., 2012. Managing perceived stress among college students: The roles of social support and dysfunctional coping. Journal of College Counseling, 15(1), pp.5-21.

Duffield, B., Stowe, G. and Shankar, A., Palantir Technologies, Inc., 2014. Presentation and analysis of user interaction data. U.S. Patent 8,689,108.

Goldkuhl, G., 2012. Pragmatism vs interpretivism in qualitative information systems research. European Journal of Information Systems, 21(2), pp.135-146.

Gonçalves, I., Silva, S., Melo, J. and Carreiras, J., 2012. Random sampling technique for overfitting control in genetic programming. Genetic Programming, pp.218-229.

Mahmoud, J.S.R., Staten, R.T., Hall, L.A. and Lennie, T.A., 2012. The relationship among young adult college students’ depression, anxiety, stress, demographics, life satisfaction, and coping styles. Issues in mental health nursing, 33(3), pp.149-156.

Pierce, W.C. and Sawyer, D.T., 2013. Quantitative analysis. John Wiley And Sons, Inc; London; Toppon Company, Ltd; Japan.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Team, S., Network, S. and Assessment, S.N., 2012. Data collection methods.

Wilcox, H.C., Arria, A.M., Caldeira, K.M., Vincent, K.B., Pinchevsky, G.M. and O’Grady, K.E., 2012. Longitudinal predictors of past-year non-suicidal self-injury and motives among college students. Psychological medicine, 42(4), pp.717-726.

Yan, W., Li, Y. and Sui, N., 2014. The relationship between recent stressful life events, personality traits, perceived family functioning and internet addiction among college students. Stress and Health, 30(1), pp.3-11.