1.5 Assignment Critical Reflection Journal – Blog
The Impact of Stress on Academic Performance of Online Students
Write a reflective blog post on this week’s readings, Roundtable dialogue, and/or your action research learnings. The blog writing may be your choice, but it must be substantive, including outside scholarly works, etc.
The Impact of Stress on Academic Performance of Online Students
Over the last several weeks of the previous course and now this course, I have begun to contemplate my action research project interests. As a student success coach, I work with students pursuing their degrees online and face various challenges. I aim to make their student experience as effective, efficient and enriching as possible. The common denominator for most students is stress. My action research will examine sources of stress online students face and determine how we can improve academic performance.
It has become evident that student learning behavior and academic performance are established by numerous circumstances and influence it, including stress. Based on existing research, there is sufficient evidence that chronic stress and college life are closely related. Researchers assert that students’ stress causes are primarily related to problems with the costs associated with pursuing an education, adequate housing, personal security, and others, to name a few. These stressors experienced by students can significantly affect learning ability, which impacts academic performance.
Academic challenges then also create uneasiness, resulting in an overall increased state of anxiety. Students who experience high intellectual and emotional stress while in college are often observed to withdraw from educational activities. One of the reasons is the need for a proper time management routine. This is one of the questions I continually ask students in my role as a Success Coach about their time management routine. Having a properly balanced schedule includes a proportionate balance of work and rest. Though stress is considered a part of a student’s life and can impact the students’ coping strategies with the demands of academic life, however, if we can help students address the stress in their lives, perhaps we can improve academic performance.
References
Ortuño-Sierra, J., Fonseca-Pedrero, E., Aritio-Solana, R. Chocarro de Luis, E., “Stress assessment during adolescence: Psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the Student Stress Inventory-Stress Manifestations across gender and age,” European Journal of Developmental Psychology, vol.13, no. 5, pp. 529-544, 2016.
Svedberg, P., Mather, L., Bergström, G., Lindfors, P, Blom, V., “Time pressure and sleep problems due to thoughts about work as risk factors for future sickness absence,” International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, vol. 91, pp. 1051-1059, 2018.
