RELATIONSHIP AMONG ACADEMIC STRESS, MOTIVATION AND ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENT OF NCE STUDENTS OF COLLEGE OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA
Chapter
One
Introduction
1.1 Background to the Study
Over the past few
decades, there has been significant investigation on the issues of stress and
management of stress. In addition, college students have been shown to possess
a unique set of stressors which can affect their daily experiences. Stress has
been defined as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other
type of demands placed on them (Campbell, 2006). Thus, Stress consists of any
event in which environmental demands, internal demands or both tax or exceed
the adaptive resources of the individual (Lazarus & Folkman 1986). In other
words, stress arises when there are burden on the person which exceed his
available assets. Stress occurs when an individual is confronted by a situation
that he perceive as overwhelming and cannot cope with. Academic Stress is the
pressure and anxiety that come from schooling and education. As a matter of
fact, college students in their peculiar endeavours are exposed to various
kinds of stressors including academic and psychological stress which could
militate against their active participation in school activities, and this may
block the possibilities of realizing their educational goals. It is considered
to be a part of students‘ life and can impact the students coping strategies in
accordance with the demands of academic life. This is so because academic work
is always accomplished with stressful activities. Thus, tertiary institution
students are very vulnerable to experience stress, which may be related to many
educational outcomes. Lazarus and Folkman (2007) stated that person's response
towards stress depends on whether an event is appraised as a challenge or a threat.
It is a necessary and inescapable concomitant of daily living-necessary because
without some stress we would be listless and apathetic creatures. Erkutlu and Chafra
(2006) for instance opines that, when these events take place, an individual
may become disorganized, disoriented and therefore less able to cope with, thus
may result in stress related problems. The pressure to perform well in the
examination or test and time allocated might make academic environment very
stressful. However, it is pertinent to note that if stressed students cannot
effectively learn and consequently perform poorly in their academics, it would
be very difficult to realize the Federal Government‘s objectives on Tertiary
Education. The incidence of stress especially among College of Education
students has increased dramatically in recent years. There is often a lot of
pressure that comes along with pursuing NCE Certificate and one's education.
There is studying, assignment, tests, labs, reading, and quizzes. Teachers
expect work to be completed on time. There is the stress of doing all of the
work, balancing the time and finding time for extra-curricular activities.
There are several explanations for increased stress levels in college students.
First, students have to make significant adjustments to college life. Second,
because of the pressure of studies, there is strain placed on interpersonal
relationships. Third, housing arrangements and changes in lifestyle contribute
to stress experienced by college students. In addition, students in college
experience stress related to academic requirements, support systems, and
ineffective coping skills. Whereas these factors have been found to be
responsible for stress, it is worth noting that in order to minimize the stress
among students, the College administrators must develop appropriate strategies
that will enable them to detect in advance the symptoms and causes of the stress.
According to Yumba (2009), possible sources of stress that can be faced in
academic situations could be viewed in four areas: by relating with others,
personal factors, academic factors, and environmental factors. This is
important because authentic engagement may lead to higher academic achievement
throughout student life (Zyngier, 2008).Satisfactory school learning and
academic achievement are unlikely to take place in absence of sufficient
motivation to learn. Psychologists have noted that motivation should be taken
into account in education because of its effective relationship with new
learning, abilities, strategies and behaviors. By motivation people are
stimulated to successfully complete an assignment, achieve a goal or a degree
of qualification in their professions. Accordingly motivation defines the
reasons behind people‘s behavior and determines why they behave in a particular
way. Motivated behaviors are energetic, oriented and permanent (Omidiyan,
2006). Psychological experts have divided motivation into two major groups of
intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. While the individual influenced
by the extrinsic motivation will independently undertake a specific activity in
order to achieve a goal, the intrinsic motivation provides the sufficient
incentive for doing a task (Mohamadi, 2006).Intrinsic motivation, occurs when
the activity is done out of the free choice of the individual (Ryan & Deci
2000). Intrinsically motivated students perform activities simply for the
enjoyment and satisfaction that comes from completing the activity. These
students engage in behaviors such as working for a sustained period of time,
taking more risks, and working out creative solutions to problems. Extrinsic
motivation is a construct that is relevant whenever an activity is done in
order to attain some reward.Extrinsically motivated behaviors‘ are those where
the controlling mechanism is easily seen (Ryan & Deci (2000), An extrinsic
orientation toward learning is characterized by a concern with external reasons
for working, such as the judgment of others regarding one‘s performance,
grades, or some anticipated reward.
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