Perceived academic stress of university students across gender, academic streams, semesters, and academic performance

Pages: 231-235
Parveen Banu and Sibnath Deb (Department of Applied Psychology Pondicherry University, Puducherry)
Vishnu Vardhan and Tirupati Rao (Department of Statistics Pondicherry University, Puducherry)

The broad objective of the study was to investigate the perceived academic stress of Pondicherry University students across gender, academic stream, semesters, and academic performance. A group 699 university students from three academic streams viz., Humanities & Social Science, Science and Management was covered in the study following multi-stage cluster sampling method and data was collected by using a specially designed Structured Questionnaire and a standardized psychological scale on academic stress following self-administration method. Findings disclosed that female students experienced more academic stress compared to male student (p<.01). Students from Humanities and Social Science were found to be suffering from more academic stress than that of Science and Management students (p<.01). Semester II students (p<.01) and students with better academic performance (p<.01) reported experiencing more academic stress. The findings speak in favor of institution-based mental health support services for the university students to help them to overcome the academic stress and perform better.