Students usually face a lot of pressure in their studies and it increases depending on the amount of work they are expected to do. A study shows that most students are more relaxed at the beginning of the semester and things get tougher as they approach exams. They have a lot of assignments to complete and prepare for exams, which forces some to stay up all night studying. They also might sat away from social life which affects the way of mind functioning and in the end might lead to serious mental issues. Severals methods were used in this report to establish the facts of these assumptions and the data was analysed to get the statistics and level of damage.
What are the major causes of students’ distress in the University?
What is the extent of damage that students’ distress might have on their mental health
The subject matter is of concern and needed more investigation and studying to come up with the right outcomes and conclusions. The study focused on collecting the data by involving the students from different departments and in different ways to ensure that ensure that they attain the most informative findings at the end of the study.
The project involved a meta-study kind of method to collect information in combined methods ranging from interviews, questionnaires, observations and other types for the sake of getting as much information as possible. The data was collected from different points including visiting the classes and reading areas during the day and at night too. The visits started as early as the first week after the orientation of the semester and continued until examination time, noting down the behaviors of students during all this time (Sapsford, 2006). Information was also obtained from the media including emails and social media platforms where mot students are known to be huge participants. The researcher studied their level of participation and the type of content students post from the first weeks of the semester in comparison to near exam periods or during exams. Another focus was in the sports and entertainment segments of the university to examine the numbers seen in the spots at different times of the semester.
The type of research question formulated is the rational type which aims at establishing the comparison between different variables related to the project. One factor in the study leads or affects the other either in the positive or the negative ways and the study sought to look at these variations (Sapsford, 2006). The different approaches taken in the study ensures that each variable is investigated to find the impacts they bring on each other. For example, the student’s participation on social media or entertainment forums at different times exposes their emotional response to their school work.
The target population in this case are the students and to some extent a few people from the school environment like the teachers and workers who usually observe the behavior of students throughout the semester. The researcher therefore personally talked to the participants and requested for their time to get involved in the study (Sapsford, 2006). They also went online on social media and invited participants to join the research so as to get the view of interactions on the internet over the specified time for the research. The study aims for diverse views and they therefore looked for participants in all sectors of the school to get a more interactive final outcome. The researcher therefore, talked to the teachers and managed to involve the serious and focused students in the study. They also interacted with the students interested with sports and entertainment in school to get a different view of the issue.
Some ethical implications during the study were that some participants did not want to answer all the questions asked and it was upto to the researcher to repect their wish. The study was voluntary and therefore no participant was forced to get involve (Sapsford, 2006). The research was also only interested with the information given by the participants and not their personal details like names, addresses and other issues. These considerations were taken to ulfill the ethical consideration of the research process and to give confidence to the participants so that they can freely assist.
The study started their surveys from the first week of the research to ensure that the information available on the ground was collected in the most appropriate way. The researcher focused on the first hand information provided by the participants and insisted on asking the formulated questions at the beginning of the research process. The surveys were administed to the individuals involved depending on their groups as divided by the researcher (Sapsford, 2006). Online surveying was the most used as it was easy and time saving to conduct especially amongst the students. Using the Qualtricks survey platform, the researcher ensured that the right kind of questions was provided to the participants depending on the context of the study.
The study was more concerned about the kind of distress that results from students’ pressure in fulfilling their academic requirements. The study considered these outcomes to be the primary as well as the impact of student’s activities on student’s mental health. However, there were other secondary expectations from the study like the things students do to deal with stressful situations in their school lifes. For example:
The main aim of the study is to come up with appropriate and applicable results that can be used to make conclusions and recommendations at the end. It was noted that most students seemed relaxed and free during the first weeks of the semester (Sapsford, 2006). The classroom and reading areas were usually empty or with just a few students who were observed to leave the area after a few hours. The trend however changed as the exams approached and classes were getting fuller. Students were staying longer in the reading areas, sometimes even the whole day and late hours of the evening with a quiet and serious mood observed as shown in figure I below:
|
Area of focus (Classrooms and reading areas) |
Number of students seen around (est) |
Time spent |
Behavior of students |
Common Comments made |
|
First two Weeks of the Semester |
10 |
1hr per student |
Free and relaxed |
School life is sweet and enjoyable |
|
A few days to Exams |
100 |
Over 8hrs |
Busy and focused |
A lot of pressure due to exams |
Social media appearances were also noted to change depending on the time of the study. Most students were seen spending almost the whole day and night on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram during the first few weeks of the semester. They were posting pictures of their fun moments, and positive comments were also a trend. Jokes were the most used with students from the different classes freely interacting on Facebook. WhatsApp groups were also actively participated with almost all members commenting on the outside class discussions in the platform. A week before exams, things started to change with only a few students saw online or even posting something. This time round the pictures was more severe with captions line ‘studying for exams,’ ‘exam fever’ and much more. Emails were the most used during this period to access class notes send by their lecturers and fellow students. Figure 2 shows the findings;
When it comes to the participation of the sports and entertainment sectors in the school environment, the trend is as shown above. There was more participation during the first weeks of the semester, and it kept on reducing towards the exam periods until there was only a small percentage left. Teachers and workers gave equally similar observations stating that students are usually free and relaxed after opening the school and then get busy at the end of the semester. They were satisfied that exams are the most stressful periods in the university and since students only get serious as they approach towards exams, then more action could be observed at the time.
From the results obtained in the study, it is clear that examinations are the leading factor towards distressful time at school. Results obtained from observations of students behaviors either around the school compound, on social media and in sports give a similar implication. Students are usually relaxed during the orientation of the semester as not many things are required of them at this time. They only come to school to meet their friends and have fun as the lessons are just beginning. Towards the mid of the semester, things start to get dangerous with increased assignments and group discussions leading to a reduction of social participation. However, this change is usually minimal as not all students take classwork serious and after all, there are no exams (Shapiro, 2007). However, things get worse towards and during exams as most students do not prepare early enough and therefore depend on last minute. The recorded minimum participation of students in sports, social media and entertainment is because they are usually busy reading. The results from teachers and workers are right because those are the third parties who only observe what is going on with the students.
Stress emerging from last-minute pressure might affect the students’ mental health since they are focused on books and forget about their social lives. Students begin to have sleep disorders as they are afraid of wasting any time and end up failing exams (Shapiro, 2007). The situation might not be dangerous or permanent; they negatively influence the way of thinking of an individual. Overworking under pressure leads to over thinking which a sign of stress. It is therefore important for students to be advised to change their schedules and set deadlines. They should plan their semester in such a way that they will start preparing early and avoid last minute distress. Teachers should also get involved by demanding to see projects frequently to encourage their students to take studies seriously and develop at the right time (Shapiro, 2007).
References
Sapsford, R. &. (2006). Data collection and analysis. Sage.
Shapiro, S. L. (2007). Teaching self-care to caregivers: effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on the mental health of therapists in training. Training and education in professional psychology , 1(2), 105.
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