Introduction
College has always
been known to be some of the best times of someone’s life, and also some of the
most stressful. A great deal of studies
cover the effects of partying and health on GPA, but not many studies have
taken a look at the stress of college students.
Stress can have a major role in the well being in someone’s life and
success in school. Because of this it is important to know understand how class
and studying workload affects a student’s stress level. Also, to know how this stress can effect
performance.
In
a study performed in 2008, by the University of Minnesota, it was found that
stress is the factor that has the biggest effect on the GPA’s of students in
college. It is known that stress is a
huge factor in academic performance, however there are many different sources
of stress for college students, especially freshman. There is a gap in this research because what
things can people control that will allow them to be less stressful and more
successful. A factor that plays a large
role in the stress of many college students is the workload of class and
studying. But no one has looked into how
the work that is put in and required for classes can affect the stress, and
eventually the grades of students.
To
fill this gap in knowledge, a new study surveyed 20 college freshman at the
University of Iowa. In this survey they
wee asked about there workload in the classroom and time spent studying or
doing homework along with how they rated their stress level, and their academic
performance. This new research will give
an insight to the relationship between the workload in hours spent on school to
the academic performance.
Methods
Participants:
20
college students from the University of Iowa participated in this study. All of these students were freshman.
Data Sources & Procedures:
The
data was collected by handing out surveys on paper. Surveys were anonymous and required students
to input their semester hours and how many hours, on average, they spent
studying in a week per semester hour.
Also, students were asked to rate their stress level and academic
performance on a scale provided in each question.
Data Analysis:
To
gain the conclusions from this, the data was analyzed for the correlation
between the work load and stress levels of the University of Iowa
freshman. The number of hours spent in
class was compared to the stress level.
The number of hours spent studying per week was compared to the stress
level of the students. Also, the total
number of hours on academics (time in class + time spent studying/on homework)
was analyzed with the stress levels of students.
