Academic Stress, Academic Anxiety and Psychological Health among newly admitted undergraduate students of Baze University Abuja.

Abstract

This study investigated Academic Stress, Academic Anxiety and Psychological Health among newly admitted undergraduate students of Baze University Abuja. The Cross-sectional survey design was employed where 211 newly admitted students consisting of 91 (43.1%) males and 120 (56.9%) females were used. Their ages ranged from 20-54years with the mean age of 36.88 years (SD=4.202). Convenient sampling was used to draw samples for the study. Three instruments were used for data collection; The Academic Stress Inventory, Academic Anxiety Source Instrument and the Ryff’s Psychological Wellbeing Scale. Three hypotheses were tested using Multiple Linear Regression and Standard Multiple Regression. Findings indicated that academic stress significantly predicted psychological health among newly admitted undergraduate students of Baze University Abuja. The result further indicated that all the dimensions of Academic Stress; Teacher Stress, Result Stress, Test Stress, Group Studying Stress, Peer Stress, Time Management and Self-Inflicted Stress made significant contributions in the prediction of Psychological Health. Secondly, the result also indicated that Academic Anxiety significantly predicted Psychological Health among newly admitted undergraduate students of Baze University Abuja. The result further indicated that all the dimensions of Academic Anxiety; Study Task Source, Emotional Source, Social Source, Language Source and Family Source significantly predicted Psychological health. The result also showed that Academic Stress and Academic Anxiety jointly predicted Psychological Health among newly admitted undergraduate students of Baze University Abuja. It was recommended that Clinical and School Psychologists should develop intervention programmes to reduce the stress and anxiety that students face in the course of studying, since the two factors were noted to affect students’ psychological health. In addition, the Students’ Affairs Division of universities should schedule periodic psychological health check–up for newly admitted undergraduate students. This will keep them in the right mental state to pursue their academic goals.