Student Descriptions of Stress

Student Descriptions of StressTitleHow do second-year psychology educatees describe theirexperiences of university strive?Abstract purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews were used as well as Interpretative phenomenological analysis being utilised to analyse the reproductions and quality checks were implemented to increase the validity of the analysis. three superordinate themes were identified with distributively superordinate theme had two sub-themes each. Such qualitative interrogation is rare in the university related tense literature for psychology students. Suggestions for further research regarding students deal with university tautness.Introduction on that point are now more students aiming to enter an increasingly competitive job market, which exacerbates the pressure to achieve a respectable degree (Robotham & Julian, 2006). In addition to financial and employment pressures, as well as completing exams and assignments is a period of signifi cornerstone t change in a students life story sentence, with heightened levels of judge (Fisher & Hood, 1987). In a study conducted by Hirsch and Ellis (1996) the came to the conclusion that university students put extreme pressure on themselves to get a good grade, micturate a degree, and get a job as soon as they finish their studies. Although, this is possible to achieve, the negative effects that come with sort of pressure could develop a student to do poorly in one assignment or exam imputable to the try out they have subjected themselves too and create hitherto more nervous strain for themselves by punishing themselves for not achieving as good of grade as they could have. Moyle and Parkes (1999) believed thatgiven the high levels of filter out and change students are go about throughoutuniversity and the pressure placed on their coping resources, support from friendsand family is invaluable during this period. McEwan (2000) also claimed thatbrain regions respond to acute and c ontinuing taste and show changes in morphology and chemistry. Using the previous relevant research as a guidelineits expected that the participants will describe their experiences ofuniversity melody by revealing the sources of their stress and how they dealwith their stress.Method circuit card 1. plug-in depicting demographic information of participants used in this experiment ParticipantsFour second year students studying psychology at University participated in this piece of research. It was key to obtain information from a variety of different military positions however is some homogeneity in some participants such(prenominal) as gender, age, and subject of study (see Table 1). Purposive sampling was used in this piece of research because it bureau that the tec can select participants base upon a particular purpose to meet their particular needs.ProcedureA semi-structured interview was used tocollect information from the participants regarding their experiences of univer sitystress. This was decidedly the best method because it meant that the researchercould collect data relating to university stress exploitation wide-awake questions butcould also delve deeper into a participants answer by using probing questionsthat encourage involution on a certain point. The interviewer began richlyinforming the participant that the interview would be audio recorded and usedanonymously to analyse later on. This was fully by a full explanation briefedabout the purpose of the experiment and that the participant has the right towithdraw at anytime. The participant would be interviewed using the preparedquestions along with any probing questions used, as well as debriefed and afterthe participants were interviews the recording was then transcribed.Analytical approachA qualitative study was mind to bebest because it meant that the researcher could gather more detailed data fromthe participants. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was the chosenmethod o f analysis in this piece of research because it each(prenominal)owed the interviewerto explore the subjective experiences of the participant, and help to describeand understand the respondents account of the processes by which they make guts of their experiences of university stress (Brocki, Wearden,2006). Criticalrealism is the ontological stance of IPA this means that there is a realityhowever it is subjective because everyone interprets reality in different ways(Furlong, Marsh, 2010). This means that the epistemological stance of IPA isinterpretive because it attempts to make sense of the subjective views (Furlonget al, 2010). IPA was used as a method of analysing the data by creating replicas from each participants audio recording. Each replica was readseveral times so that the researcher was familiar the data which was then codedin order to create emergent themes which would eventually become categorizedinto superordinate themes. The process was the same for each participant resulting in a table p surveiling the superordinate themes, sub-themes, andquotes from the transcripts to support the creation of the themes.ReflexivityQualitative analysis is a subjectiveprocess and IPA recognises that a researchers perspective usually affects theanalysis (Golsworthy & Coyle, 2001).Having a good understanding of IPA means that the researchers personalperspective relative to the research topic is presented, to assist the readersinterpret the analysis and for hydrofoil (Elliott et al. 1999).The researchers interpretative framework has been enticed by previousresearch in stress. It is also recognised that the analysis is influenced bythe researchers perspective and the framework applied to understand the data.Findings Table 2. Table of key themes Effects of student stressThe results of how the participants expound their experiences of university related stress revealed that therewere a range of different effects of stress that can stretch from physicaleffects to psy chological effects, which were found to be a dominant effects ofstress (see appendix 2 for themes and quotations). The psychological effects ofstress can be seen in flagstones transcript in which she stated thatI dont know how to put it in words, not just stress, it was the worst facial expression ever.When you opine what close people gothrough in their lives, for her to say it was the worst feelingever goes to show the toll stress had taken on her cause her to feelthe worst she has ever felt. There is also march in Jessicas transcript inwhich she described one of her experiences in dealing with university relatedstress as feeling so much anxiousness that it felt like she was drowning. There isalso severalise in Anils transcript which reveals that he suffers from highlevels of anxiety but without mention of a drowning sensation. There is further secernate of psychological effects of stress in Smokies transcript whichsuggest that he regularly suffers from mini breakdowns that help to motivatehim to work but the motivation goes after a day or two which creates anothermini breakdown due to the buildup of responsibilities.There is also evidence to suggest thatthe participants suffered from physiologic effects as well as psychologicaleffects. The main evidence comes from Anils transcript in which he describedone effect of his university related stress that stated My face gets lots of spots when I am feeling stress. For the effects of stress to manifest ina physical way is worrying but not uncommon, for example in Smokies transcripthe revealed that he cries a lot because of university related stress. In Irisstranscript she describes an effect of university related stress by revealingthat coping with all the responsibilities and stress of university makes herfeel weak, which would be categorized as a physiological effect as well as apossible psychological effect due to the fact that you feel weakness ratherthan show it.Sources of student stressThe results of how the participantsdescribed their experiences of university related stress revealed that therewere a variety of different sources of stress for university students whichrange from university work such as assignments or exams, to life aftergraduation. Both are considered in these participants transcripts to bedominant sources of stress. University work as a source of stress for itsstudents is evident in all transcripts with perchance the most evident comes fromAnils transcript in which he states that A time umm when I experienced stress the most during university is when I have a immense report due. This not only reveals one source ofstress for this student to be reports set by the university but it also goes toshow that this participant feels most stressed at university when set reports.This also relates to Smokies transcript in which he described his stresslevels as being high when it came to deadlines which isnt that dis identical toAnils quotation due to the fact that both fe el highly stressed because of workset by the university. Further evidence can be found in Jessicas transcript inwhich she described her feeling of drowning in anxiety to be a result of a lackof understanding when it came to analysing data. depict for his future life as a sourceof stress for university student is evident in the transcripts but the mostevident comes from Smokies transcript which stated that teachers do things for me and like my parents do things for me, because I dont feel ready to do things for myself.Again, this not only reveals his mainfear for his future life to be, but it also shows how he has got as far as hehas, which is down to the support he gets from those around him. This can alsobe support by Jessicas transcript which described her opinion of her futurelife as one of confusion as to what her she would be doing in her future lifeand whether she would delight in it or not. There is also evidence in Irisstranscript which reveals that she is still struggling with dealing with all theuniversity related stress but she is hopeful that her future life will bebetter.Dealing with student stress The results of how the participantsdescribed their experiences of university related stress revealed that therewere several different methods of dealing with stress used by the participantsranging from the support of family and friends, to the amount of support theygive themselves. Evidence of support from family and friends as a method ofdealing with stress can be found in all the participants transcripts, however,the main evidence for this point comes from Iriss transcript in which she statesthatMy mum is always being there for me and loves me and Ihave had some other woman in my life, I talk to her about my problems.This reveals evidence of support not only fromher mother but also from another woman who isnt a family member but would beregarded by her as a friend that supports her. This example is not unlikeJessicas transcript in which she reveals that she uses her flatmates as amethod of coping with her stress.Another example of a participant usingthe support of family and friends as a method of dealing with universityrelated stress comes from Smokies transcript in which he says that he gets alot of help from his parents and when he usually gets stressed out withuniversity work he talks to his friends.Self-support is what a person does ordoesnt do to help themselves throughout their first two years of university.Evidence from Jessicas transcription states thatI procrastinate a lot whenever I have something to do for Uni, suddenly I get a major absorb to do something else.This clearly shows the lack ofself-support she gave herself which meant that instead of doing university workshe would ignore her responsibilities and find something else to do. Thisresults in a build up of responsibilities that can create an overwhelmingfeeling of stress and possibly cause other problems for the student accordingto the evidence previously discussed regarding the manifestation ofpsychological problems into physicals ones, for example Anil and his facialspots.More evidence for a lack of self-supportcan be seen is all the transcripts, for example in Smokies transcript in whichhe describes himself as a corner-cutter who often does things he doesnt enjoywith half of his effort even though he understands that this is one of thereasons why he gets behind on his university work creating more stress forhimself. Further evidence can be found in Anil and Iriss transcripts in whichthey both reveal that they struggle when it comes to self-support. Anil getsstressed when he attempts to tackle problems by himself, whereas Iris goesthrough periods of time where she feels like she cannot deal with problems byherself. DiscussionIn summation, the analysis of the datahas revealed that the participants all describe their experiences of universitystress in a similar manner the effects of stress on students, sources ofstress for students, and dealing with student stress. Each superordinate themehad two sub-themes each, which were the result of a variety of emergent themesthat were combined and adapted to equate to the final themes in the analysis.The participants descriptions of theeffects of university stress related to those described by McEwen (2000) whobelieved that stress began in the brain and affected all organs and muscles butnone more so than the brain. Using his research combined with this experimentsdata means that its possible localize psychological effects of stress to theburden of chronic stress which can result in behavioral changes (smoking,excessive eating, binge drinking, little or no sleep). Physiological effects ofstress can be localised using the same method in which McEwan (2000) claimedthat brain regions respond to acute and chronic stress and show changes inmorphology and chemistry. This could justify why the participants were affectedthe ways they were.The difficulties related to university work but more specifically exams and assignments, can be linked to Yumatov(2001) who reported that exams can influence a strong psychological andemotional reaction in students, with feelings of stress experienced before andduring, that can persist until they receive their results afterwards, with manyexperiencing anxiety and stress over the outcome. Gadzella(1998)argued that its the uncertainty and anxiety that is the main cause of thestress as opposed to the exam itself. The pressure of graduation as well as hazard graduation life is as serious source of stress as any according to thedata from this experiment and is also supported by Hirsch and Ellis (1996).This could rationalise what the sources of the participants university stress was.The participants experience of dealingwith university stress can be related to other similar cases such as Moyle andParkes (1999) who believe that given the high levels of stress and changestudents are faced throughout university and the pressure placed on theircoping resources, support from friends and family is invaluable during thisperiod. Without friends, students have more limited resources at their governanceto assist them in the university work as well as emotional support. An absenceof friends also makes it more likely to consider dropping out (Paul &Brier, 2001).This could explain why the participants used the supportive systems they used.Using a qualitative approach provideddepth and detail in that it looked deeper than analysing ranks and counts byrecording attitudes, feelings and behaviours. Similar to the reason why asemi-structured interview was chosen because it allows the interviewer to bemore spontaneous in their questioning without being too sporadic. That beingsaid, there are usually less people are studied in qualitative report becausea collection of data is generally more time consuming that quantitative datacollection and therefore unless time, staff and budget allows it is generallynecessary to inclu de a smaller sample size. It also means that its difficultto generalise because few people are studied and its not possible togeneralise results to that of the population. A qualitative report is alsodependent on skills the of the researcher particularly in the case ofconducting interviews, focus groups and observation. As an overall summation ofthis study it can be concluded that there is need for further research regardinguniversity stress as a result of the data and previous relevant research.ReferencesAbouserie, R. (1994).Sources and levels of stress in relation to locus of control and self esteem inuniversity students. Educational psychology, 14(3), 323-330.Brocki, J. M., & Wearden, A. J.(2006). A critical evaluation of the use of interpretative phenomenologicalanalysis (IPA) in health psychology. Psychology and health, 21(1),87-108.Dahl, C. M., & Boss, P. (2005). Theuse of phenomenology for family therapy research. Research methods in familytherapy, 2, 63-84.Denovan, A., & Ma caskill, A. (2013).An interpretative phenomenological analysis of stress and coping in first yearundergraduates. 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