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EFFECTS OF
STRESS ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background
to the Study
Universities
all over the world are places where learning is sought at its maximum level and
it is the center for academic pursuits.
It is necessary to remind ourselves of the objectives of a university
because for a proper chart of the university course, it is paramount to state
the mission of universities. According
to Henderson (1969), re-echoed by Omoregbe (1973), universities are meant to
fulfill the following functions:
· To provide places for pure culture and
learning for learning sake.
· To conduct research and advance the
boundaries of knowledge through outlet like workshops, conferences,
publications, etc.
· To serve as training schools for the professions.
· To turn out trained leaders for every
walk of life.
· To act as liaison between the so-called
“academic men” and the “good solid practical men” acquisition of balancing
theory and practice, and
· To be the custodian of intellectual
freedom, safe guarding liberty and the unfettered search for truth.
These
functions indicate the onerous responsibilities resting on the universities’
shoulders. For a university to attain
such goals, it has to be properly equipped and focused to carry out such
responsibilities. Regrettably, Nigerian universities especially the University
of Benin have fallen short of what these ideals are and they are beset by
numerous problems which are affecting their proper functioning and the student
in particular. These problems include:
i. Provision of basic infrastructural
facilities such as accommodation, power, water and transportation.
ii. Funding of university which include
payment of lecturers’ salaries, allocation of part-time jobs for students and
scholarship, inflation, deflation and unemployment of graduate after
graduation.
iii. Parents’ economic status, income of parents
as it affects students. According to Awe (2000), the problem of Nigerian
universities as it affects undergraduate students have increased over the years
with increasing enrolment and poor funding.
The Faculty
of Education in the University of Benin is not left out of these
inadequacies. The lack of basic
infrastructural facilities and parents economic status would in turn directly
affect teaching and learning for the students and this would reflect on their
grade level in school. The lack of these
necessities can be a source of stress to the students. For effective learning to take place, the
right conditions that would be favourable to this memory needs to be set in
places. Learning and memory can be affected by stress. Although an optimal level of stress can
enhance learning ability (Kaplan and Sadock, 2000), too much stress can cause
physical and mental health problems (Niemo and Vainiomaki, 1999), reduce
students self esteem (Lenn and Zeppa, 1984; Silver and Glicken, 1990) and may
affect academic achievement. According to high school psychology textbook,
stress is a particular pattern of disturbing psychological and physiological
reaction that occurs when an environment event threatens important motives and
taxes one’s ability to cope. The Medical Review Board, also defined stress as
the body’s reaction to change that requires a physical, mental or emotional
adjustment or response. The term stress was coined by Han Selye.
Hans was
born in Vienna in 1901, Early on, in his second year of medical school (1926),
he began developing his now famous theory on the influence of stress on
people’s ability to cope with and adapt with pressures of injury and
diseases. He discovered that patients
with a variety of ailments manifested many similar symptoms, which he
ultimately attributed to their bodies efforts to respond to stress of being
ill. He called this collection of
symptoms, this separate stress disease, stress syndrome, or the general
adaptation syndrome (GAS). Selye defined stress as the non-specific response of
the body to any demand made upon it.
Each demand made on the body is unique in that there is a definite
response. When we are cold, we shiver;
when we are hot, we perspire; a great muscular effort increases the demand upon
the heat and vascular system. However,
whatever the specific response, there is also activated non-specific response
which is independent of the cause. For
example, the woman who is told that her husband suddenly died, suffers a
terrible mental shock if sometime later, he walks into the room alive and well,
she experience extreme joy. The specific
results of the stress are opposite, but the non-specific effects are the same.
This pioneer in stress research, Professor Hans Selye has gathered together
tens of thousands of pieces of medical study which describe the body’s reaction
to just about every conceivable type of stress.
He describes this bank account of nervous energy thus: It is as though at birth, each individual
inherited a certain amount of adaptation energy. The magnitude of which is determine by his
genetic background. There is just so
much of it and we must budget accordingly (The stress of life, page 15).
Agunlana
(1990) has said, that stress is that which man experience when is under
pressure and feel unable to cope. Stress
can be associated with personal goals.
Stressful period of life such as judging the demand of college with the
responsibility of job, a family or both has impact on an individual’s academic
achievement. Stressors abound in our everyday life as would condition and
unsatisfactory living continues to be a problem especially in a challenging academic
environment like our Nigerian universities.
With all the multiplied blessings of civilized westernized, urbanized
living comes stress and almost everyone suffers from it at some time (A guide
to family Health, page 24). Basically,
stress is the result of an internal or external disturbance, which threatens
the homeostasis of the human system. All
humans whether at work or outside work environment develop stress when life or
well-being is threatened or when they are faced with such discomforting factors
such as induced intense heat, cold, pain biotic stress vectors, etc (Gherman,
1981). Many factors have been identified as being the sources of stress in the
university environment. Some of these
are:
1. Aspiring to achieve more academic status
2. Examination Anxiety
3. Inadequate sleep or rest
4. Poor dieting
5. Over schedule stress caused as a result of
poor management of time.
Knowing all
these as a fundamental to a favourable academic performance of university
students, who are important to our economic development, one way to protect our
investment is to help them stay healthy; hence the study of the effects of
stress on the academic performance of students.
Statement of
Problem
University
students have many obstacles to overcome in order to achieve optimal academic
performance. A number of researches have
been done looking at the correlation of many stress factors that university
students experience and the effects of stress on their GPA. However, a review of literature indicates
that not much have been prioritized on the stress-related research. Moreover, a majority of the investigation has
taken place in the United States of America and the emphasis was placed more on
the students in the medical field. However, there is not much research
conducted to examine these particular findings in our local universities and
Nigerian university particularly in the University of Benin. Therefore, it is
timely to conduct research to examine this particular issue as findings from the
present study would benefit various parties in the university especially the
students and the Academic Affair Department in planning and conducting
necessary programmes for the students so that stress-related factors could be
reduced and better academic performance could be achieved by the students.
Research
Questions
1. Are the University of Benin students under
stress?
2. Does stress affect academic performance of
students?
3. What are the common causes of stress for
the university of Benin students?
4. How does stress affect the health of the
University of Benin students?
Purpose of
the Study
The study
attempts to find out the effects of stress on the academic performance of
students of the University of Benin.
Also, if there is a correlation between stress, academic performance and
the health of students.
Significance
of the Study
The finding
of this study, after it has well been disseminated will create an awareness on
what stress is, its causes and its effect on academic performance of
students.
Delimitation
This study
is delimited to the University of Benin undergraduate students only. The respondents would be randomly selected
with questionnaire for the students.
Limitation
There are
some number of factors that might affect the findings of this research. Some of which are:
1. Students may not be honest with response to
questionnaire.
2. Students are currently on vacation and
that would result to limited response.
3. Difficulties in sourcing relevant
materials.
4. Low level of enlightenment on subject area
on the part of the respondent which may result to low quality response.
Definition
of Terms
For the
purpose of clarity, the following terms are used in this essay are defined as
follows:
1. Stressors: These are chemical or biological agent,
environmental condition, external stimulus or an event that causes stress to an
organism.
2. Mental Health: According to WHO, it is not just the absence
of mental disorder. It is defined as a
state of well-being, in which every individual realizes his or her own
potentials, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively
and fruitfully and is able to make contribution to his or her community.
3. Stress Syndrome: These are groups of symptoms or
characteristic of stress. It could be a
psychological disorder or an abnormal condition.
4. Academic Performance: It refers to how students deal with their
studies and how they cope or accomplish different task given them by their
teachers.
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