Academic and Economical Stress Levels of College Students

Page: 493-496
Shweta Rai, Anjali Mathur, and Anshu (Department of Home Science, Ethelind School of Home Science, SHIATS, (Formerly AAI-DU), Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh)

College environment has many challenges and may present several events and situations which students have no or little skill to cope with, i.e., meeting students from different cultures, peer pressure for appearance, financial pressure etc. The competition for grades, the need to perform, peer relationships, fear of failure, career choice, teacher-student relationship, staying at hostel away from home, irregular sessions, incomplete course and many other aspects of college life can pose real life challenges that may manifest itself as stressful for student. Thus the present study aimed at assessing the stress levels among the university students belonging to different socio-economic groups and to find out the gender disparities in stress levels among university students belonging to different socio-economic groups. Exploratory Research design “and survey method was used to collect the data from the respondents. A total sample of 180 university students in the age group of 18-22 years, comprising of 90 boys (30 each belonging to lower, middle and upper socio-economic group) and 90 girls (30 each belonging to lower, middle & upper socio-economic groups) were selected for the present study. The socio-economic status (SES) of the sample was ascertained using revised version of Kuppuswamy (1962) three factor index of socio-economic status scale. Student’s Stress Scale developed by Agrawal (2012) was used to assess the academic and financial levels of stress in students. The results revealed that maximum number of respondents irrespective of their socio-economic group showed average level of stress. A significant gender disparity was seen in the level of stress where in girls showed higher level of stress as compared to boys. A significant variance was seen in the level of stress with regard to the socio-economic status of the respondents where in respondents belonging to middle socio-economic status reported to have higher level of stress as compared to their counterparts from lower and upper socio-economic groups.