Parallel enrollments: associations between stress and coping of college students with their performance

Abstract

College students are known to have high stress levels, which can have negative consequences on their academic performance. In Austria (Europe) there are no tuition fees and students are allowed to enroll in as many degree programs as they want simultaneously. The unique setting of Austria allows examination of the impact of parallel enrollments on students’ stress dimensions. Therefore, this study aims to exploratively determine associations between performance and well-being, stress coping and resource load of students in one and multiple enrolled programs. 213 students took part in a survey and their answers were merged with their performance indicators of the last academic year, retrieved from the university’s internal database. The questionnaire was sent out during the finals- and examination phase prior to the summer holidays. Multivariate linear regression analyses with performance as outcome were conducted on three analysis levels: (1) unfiltered dataset, (2) students with one enrollment and (3) students with two or more enrollments. Results show that well-being, stress coping and resource occupation are associated with performance indicators, but differently on each analysis level. Students with one study program and students in multiple simultaneous programs may be treated as different populations performance-wise. Due to the correlative nature of this study, the outcomes and predictors are likely influencing each other, making future research on the causal relationships warranted.