Level of Academic Stress and its Influence on the Academic Achievements of Students at Mirpur University of Science and Technology

Abstract

Academic Stress among university students is a major problem that may negatively affect their grades. Students often experience academic pressure because of the difficulties they face at the university level. This quantitative study aims to evaluate the level of academic stress among the students of Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST), Mirpur, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, and its effect on their academic achievements. For this purpose, the causal-comparative research design was used, and the “Academic Stress Scale for University Students” (Noreen et al., 2021) was administered to assess the levels of stress experienced by 331 participants (202 male and 129 female students, stratified by degree level). The CGPA of students was taken as a measure of their academic achievements. SPSS 25 was used to run a t-test and linear regression analysis on the collected data. The findings showed that both male and female students experience similar levels of academic stress with no significant difference between the two groups. Furthermore, the study found that academic stress has little (but not significant) impact on students’ academic achievements, as it only accounts for a small portion of the variation. These results suggest that while academic stress is a concern, it may not be a major factor in students’ academic achievements at MUST.