Stress and adjustment among college students in relation to their academic performance

Pages: 288-292
Ashwini, R and Vijay Prasad Barre (Department of Clinical Psychology, Dharwad Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (DIMHANS), Dharwad, Karnataka)

The present study seeks to explore the stress and adjustment areas and their academic performance of PUC College going students within a city. Three college students comprising of (N= 80) students were second year (N=40) from Arts and (N= 40) from Science 20 boys and 20 girls each stream within age groups 16 to 18 years were chosen randomly. Students with behavioural problems, poor academic performances and health issues were excluded to ensure homogeneity. After obtaining informed consent, a self-report inventory. Stress and the Bell’s Adjustment Inventory was administered to student groups over a period of 1 month to understand stress and perceived adjustment on academic performance. Scoring was done manually and descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations and univariate analysis of variance done by using SPSS-11. Findings revealed that there is a significant difference in the level of stress experience among students. There is significant difference between arts and science student’s adjustment areas. There is a significant difference between boys and girls on academic performance. There is significant difference between arts and science on academic performance. However, there were no significant gender differences among the arts and science, boys and girls. In conclusion, adolescents present as a vulnerable group of children and therefore, this is an important implication for parents and significant other professionals who need to help students develop adequate adjustment as well as academic performance.