This study revolves around the premise that the “prevalence of stress is increasing among students” and it is affecting their performance in school. it should be noted that retention rate is the most common basis for evaluating the students’ school performance, higher stress results in lower retention rate and thus disappointing overall performance in school.
This paper is then aimed at analyzing the issues concerning student retention and student progression about the stress levels of the students.
Based on the literatures reviewed and studied, the most common sources of stress of the students that significantly affect their retention levels are:
- The exams “
- …on average 30% of students show debilitating signs of stress during exams, a level of stress that can be exacerbated by being away from home and having less support”
- “Exam stress can cause nausea, changes in eating and sleeping, patterns, and stomach pains in some students” (Robotham and Julian, 2006)
- Financial pressures.
- Although it was revealed that there is no significant evidence that financial pressures negatively affect the individuals, in terms of schooling, it was reported that having limited financial resources increases the impact of strains on the students.
- Transition to and from university.
- This is particularly stressful for the students especially if they are leaving away their homes because of the idea of having new and bigger responsibilities, increased workloads, and more time pressures to adapt to the new environment.
- Study-related stressors.
- This includes assignments, projects, and other school activities that add to the workloads of the students and thereby producing more stress for them.
This paper concluded that the impact of stress on the students should and cannot be ignored. However, it is still not clear if the problems that the students and teachers thought to be stress-related are indeed caused by stress or some other factors are affecting the stress rate to be high.