ANALYSIS OF AGE AND LEVEL OF STUDY AS FACTORS IN ACADEMIC STRESS EXPERIENCED AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN EDO STATE, NIGERIA

Authors

  • P. E. Onolemhenhen Department of Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria
  • Ebiega Enokela Abel Department of Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v7i11.3444

Keywords:

age and level of study, academic stress, undergraduates of public universities

Abstract

The study examined whether age and level of study differences exist in academic stress experienced among undergraduate students of public universities in Edo State. The descriptive research design using the survey was adopted in the study. The population of covered all the 53,588 regular undergraduate students in public universities in Edo State in the 2018/2019 session. A sample size of 536 students was selected for the study. The proportional random sampling technique was used to select 2% of the total number of students across each of the faculties in the institution. The instrument used for the collection of data was a questionnaire titled: “Academic Stress Questionnaire - ASQ”. The test-retest reliability coefficient of 0.88 was obtained to show that the instrument is reliable. The t-test statistics for two independent samples and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. The result showed that the academic stress experienced among undergraduate students of Public universities in Edo State differed with respect to their age and level of study. In addition, academic stress was found to decline with increasing age of students while academic stress rises for undergraduates in their first year, declines in the second and third year but rises again in the final year. It was recommended that guidance and counselling units should be well established in every department in the university to support lecturers on the area of course advising students to reduce lecturer-related, examination-related and school-relationship stress that students may be confronted with.

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Author Biographies

  • P. E. Onolemhenhen, Department of Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria
    Onolemhenhen, P. E. is a senior lecturer in the Department of Guidance and Counselling of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria. She is a professionally trained counsellor that has several scholarly international and local publications to her credit. Her research interest centres around learners’ achievement, emotional behaviour, career development and patients’ treatment with therapies.
  • Ebiega Enokela Abel, Department of Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria
    Abel, Ebiega Enokela is a student in the Department of Guidance and Counselling of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria. With deep interest for counselling and social works, Abel, E. E. has co-authored and published some research articles in contribution to the field of guidance and counselling.

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Published

2020-11-28

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 11 (2020)

Section

Articles

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