Students' stress: The relationship of college students' stress variables to goal orientations, academic self-concept, and achievement variables.

Abstract

Results revealed that Academic Self-Concept was the most influential and predictive of GPA. Cognitive Appraisal Strategies and Negative Personal Beliefs Stressors had strong influences on Academic Self-Concept. Furthermore, Negative Personal Beliefs Stressors strongly influenced Cognitive Appraisal Strategies. Additionally, Negative Personal Beliefs Stressors correlated strongly with all stressors and stress reactions. Finally, tests for "goodness of fit" indicated that the trimmed model fits the data well.

Path analysis was utilized to test the validity of a hypothetical causal model, depicting the influence of students' stressors on Grade Point Average (GPA) when mediated by: (1) Cognitive Appraisal Strategies; (2) Cognitive Reactions; (3) Emotional Reactions; (4) Physiological Reactions; (5) Mastery Orientation; (6) Performance Orientation; and (7) Academic Self-Concept. Students' stressors consisted of: (1) Instruction and Evaluation; (2) Classroom Environment; (3) Teachers; (4) Work; (5) Family; and (6) Negative Personal Beliefs. The convenience sample consisted of college students (N = 582) from two major universities in the Midsouth: The University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, and the University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, Oklahoma. Students completed questionnaires designed to assess the aforementioned causal relationship.