Abstract
Universities are increasingly cognizant of the importance of attending to the psychological and emotional needs of undergraduate learners, recognizing that anxiety and depression have significant negative impacts on student retention and success. The focus of the current study was to evaluate the connections among various forms of anxiety and examine the relationships these indicators of anxiety have with depression. The results demonstrated that a broad measure of neuroticism was a meaningful predictor for depression. However, precision in detecting depressive symptoms was improved when examining an additional measure specifically focused on academic anxiety. The results provide support for a nested model of anxiety, which suggests that broad neuroticism, then academic anxiety, and finally test anxiety are progressively more specific manifestations of anxious indicators in university students.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Education
Academic anxiety was found to be a significant factor in predicting depression among college students—adding explanatory power beyond the overarching construct of neuroticism
We propose these results suggest that elevated levels of perceived stress or threat in response to academic stressors may serve as an early detection indicator to help identify learners at risk for academic failure and/or depression symptoms
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Education. The increased rate of anxiety and depression symptoms in university settings has been attributed to a variety of life events that pose novel challenges for young adults transitioning to traditional college settings. This transition often involves becoming isolated from lifelong social relationships and support mechanisms, incurring extensive financial burden, and realizing limitations to academic proficiency in a more rigorous learning environment (Vredenburg et al, 1988). Academic Anxiety and Depression coping strategies to manage the perceived stressors (Downs and Ashton, 2011; Heller and Cassady, 2017)
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