Topic: Stress among the students of North South University

M Mahmudur RashidID: 081 709 030

English 105. Section 12Mrs. Deena P. F

Table of contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………… 2

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 3

Literature Review…………………………………………………………………….. 4

Methodology…………………………………………………………………………. 7

Data Analysis………………………………………………………………………… 7

Conclusion and Suggestions…………………………………………………………. 16

Limitations and Directions…………………………………………………………… 18

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Abstract

In Bangladesh, North South University has been renowned for their excellence in providing quality education. But the students of this university have been compliant about the stress they feel for the rigorous requirements of studying here. These complains have been a big part of the students lives in this university. This research is about finding out the level of stress faced by the students in this university and comparison between other universities. A sample was taken from three universities including North South University. The results showed that the students of this university did face more stress than other university students

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INTRODUCTION

Stress has become an important topic in academic circle as well as in our society. Many scholars in the field of behavioral science have carried out extensive research on stress and its outcomes and concluded that the topic needed more attention (Rees and Redfern, 2000; Ellison, 2004; Ongori and Agolla, 2008; Agolla, 2009). Stress in academic institutions can have both positive and negative consequences if not well managed (Smith, 2002; Tweed et al., 2004; Stevenson and Harper, 2006). Academic institutions have different work settings compared to nonacademic and therefore one would expect the difference in symptoms, causes, and consequences of stress in the two set up (Elfering et al., 2005; Chang and Lu, 2007). It is important to the society that students should learn and acquire the necessary knowledge and skills that will in turn make them contribute positively to the development of the general economy of any nation. However, the intricate academic environment sometimes poses great medical problems to the students’ lives (Danna and Griffin, 1999; Dyck, 2001; Grawitch et al., 2007; Ongori,2008) that tend to negate the positive gains that one would expect after completion of University. These scholars assertion needs attention if the needed stress management in university have to be effective. It is important for the university to maintain well balancedacademic environment conducive for better learning, with the focus on the students’ personal needs. Students’ expectations vary with respect to personality and their backgrounds which influences on how one perceive the environment around him/her. Students at the university have different expectations, goals, and values that they want to fulfil at the university, which is only possible if the students’ expectations, goals, and values are integrated with that of the university (Goodman,1993). Thus the question at the end arises if a students perceptions, goals and expectations are actually in line with the organization.

University students are at a critical period where they enter adulthood. They areExpected to be the elites in the society. Thus, they have to enhance their stress management abilities so as to live a healthy life after entering the society.. ForUniversity freshmen, they need to not only adapt themselves to the new life and newenvironment but also be familiar with many new people, events, and things. The life stress on them is considerable. Therefore, understanding the sources of stress among them and how they can cope with the stress is very important.

Adolescence is a dangerous period of time where young people experience selfOrganization and role confusion. For them, stress mainly comes from academic tests,Interpersonal relations, relationship problems, life changes, and career exploration. Suchstress may usually cause psychological, physical, and behavioral problems. Stress becomes a very important part in a students life. Coping up with the stress and managing it efficiently is a huge responsibility for most of the students.

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The stress level even varies from university to university. In the case of Bangladesh, the private university students have varied levels of stress among themselves. It seems that all the university students don’t face the same amount of pressure. Some have a very hectic schedule regarding studies while others can just lay down and relax. Because of the stress related issues its important to evaluate how much stress a person is facing in his/her instituition.

North South University is one of the pioneers of the private universities in Bangladesh. It has a curriculum based on the American education system. The students of this university face constant pressure with their studies and are very much complaining about the comparative stress patterns with them and other private university students. As stress is an integral part of student life it is important to understand how it affects a student in general, in this case we emphasize on the students of North South University comparing the stress level faced by this university with other similar private university students. In this backdrop the areas that I wish I would like to study include:

Comparison of time spent of students studying on a regular basis Comparison of assignments, home work and class work Students ways of completing the assignments The effort given by students in their courses Time spent on recreational activities/ leisure

Literature Review

StressResearchers (Vermunt and Steensman, 2005; Topper, 2007; Ussery, 2007; Malach-Pines and Keinan, 2007) have defined stress as the perception of discrepancy between environmental demands (stressors) and individual capacities to fulfill these demands. While researcher (Campbell, 2006) defines stress as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demands placed on them. Stress occurs when an individual is confronted by a situation that they perceive as overwhelming and cannot cope up with. Academic stress among students have long been researched on, and researchers have identified stressors as too many assignments, competition with other students, failures, lack of pocket money (Fairbrother and Warn, 2003), poor relationships with other students or lecturers, family or problems at home. Institutional (university) level stressors are overcrowded lecture halls, (Ongori, 2007; Awino and Agolla, 2008), semester system, and inadequate resources to perform academic work. Erkutlu and Chafra (2006) for instance opines that, when these events take place, an individual becomes disorganised, disoriented and therefore less able to cope up, thus resulting in stress related health problems. The pressure to perform well in the examination or test and time allocated makes academic environment very stressful (Erkutlu and Chafra, 2006; Polychronopoulou and Divaris, 2005; Misra and McKean, 2000). This is likely to affect the social relations both within the University and outside (Fairbrother and Warn, 2004) since there is conflict with the social aspect of one life. This not the only affect the social relations within or outside the University, but this goes to affect the individual person’s life in terms of commitment to achieving the goals. Knowing the causes of

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students stress will make the University administrator know how to monitor and control the stress factors that are responsible for the students stress. scholars (Ornelas and Kleiner, 2003; Jaramillo et al., 2004; Verment and Steesma, 2005; Ongori, 2007; Topper, 2007; Ongori and Agolla, 2008; Agolla, 2009) for instance identified the symptoms and the causes of stress in work environments as sitting for a long period of time, poor work performance, poor interpersonal relationship, inadequate or lack of resources, inadequate time to perform particular assignments, poor working conditions, overcrowded work stations, excessive paperwork, and many others. Whereas these factors have been found to be responsible for stress, it is worth noting that in order to minimize the stress among students,the University administrators must develop appropriate strategies that will enable them to detect in advance the symptoms and causes of the stress. Researchers (Malach-Pines and Keinan, 2007; Ongori,2007; Ongori and Agolla, 2008; Agolla, 2009) have long identified stress symptoms as lack of energy, taking over the counter medication, high blood pressure, feeling depresssed, increase in appetite, trouble concentrating,restlessness, tensions and anxiety among others. An individual experiencing one of these factors is likely to be a victim of stress. Although this may also depend on how the individual appraises the situation, and how resilient is the person. While the negative effects of stress on an individual may vary considerably from one student based on their previous encounter with situations and the resilient of the individual student. In their findings (Jaramillo et al., 2005; Stevenson and Harper, 2006) point out that, the perception of the individual determines whether or not the stressor has a detrimental effect; that is whether it causes physical or psychological symptoms of stress in the individual. Earlier study by Siegrist (1998) also indicated a close link between high amounts of occupational stress and ill heath. This means that deterioration in health of the individual is likely to affect the individual performance.In a higher learning institution such as University (Smith et al., 2000) where the demand placed onstudents is based on deadlines and pressure for excelling in tests or examination, students are likely to be the victims of stress.

Institutions world wide have not taken serious steps to find out the health of students, this could be attributed to the fact that students who stay at the university is based on short period, and therefore their stress have little direct impact on the activities or operations of the institution. Another reason why little have been done on students stress could be due to the fact that students’ presence in the institution have no direct relationship to thequality of education they get. We argue that, unless the university puts appropriate measures that take care of well being of the students, the student’s health may compromise the quality of education they are supposed to get (Daniels and Harris, 2000; Smith et al., 2000; Finlayson, 2003). Gibbons and Gibbons (2007) and McCarty et al.(2007) have carried out extensive research on stress and found out that, stress is associated with how an individual appraises situations and the coping strategies adopted.The motivation for this research is that, there have been reported cases of stress among students that has resulted in severe damage of a student’s personal life. The causes for such occurrences are not known since the victims of stress are never present to tell their stories. In the case of North South University and other private universities of Bangladesh, study stress has made students to relieve this stress via the means of

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smoking, drinking and hanging out with friends. This causes further damage to their studies and study stress increases even more.

The sources of stress are summarized as follows:

1. Physical/mental factor

Students are mostly concerned about their physical appearances than about otheraspects. Many of them are even dissatisfied with their physical appearances (Siegel and Lane,1982). Wang and Ko (1999) pointed out that girls feel upset more easily than boys, mainly because of their concerns about physical appearances. Girls may perceive themselves as “very ugly”, feel that they are too fat, too short, too high, or dislike their hair color or skin color. Lan (2003) mentioned that some physiological symptoms such as headache were signals of a mental overload. Other signals included fatigue, depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction with certain interpersonal relations, change of the current sleeping habit, and a drastic gain/loss of body weight. Feng (1992) pointed out that setting high goals, being a perfectionist, and comparing the self with others, and self-degradation may all cause stress and result in depression.

2. Family factor

Families with constant conflicts are characterized by a lack of parent-child communication and in-depth understanding of each other’s expectations (Liu and Chen1997). Totalitarian parents seldom show their care about their children. The control orpunishment they impose will only increase the psychological stress on their children (Liuand Chen, 1997).

3. Institutional factor

Chiang (1995) proposed that institution is one of the main sources of stress amongstudents. Such stress comes from too much homework, unsatisfactory academicperformance, preparation for tests, lack of interest in a particular subject, and teacher’spunishment. Generally, parents are very concerned about their children’s academicachievement and moral behaviors. Parents expect their children not only to respect teachers and follow moral norms but also become elite in the future (Liu and Chen, 1997).

The educationist Dewey once said “education is a pursuit of a perfect life”. However,school teachers and parents usually use academic achievement as the sole criterionfor evaluating a student’s performance at school. This criterion causes double stress onstudents. Stress from high expectations of teachers, parents, and self is usually an agonyfor students studying in schools (Cheng, 1999).

4. Relationship factor

Most students are urgent to develop a relationship with the opposite sex. As there

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are no absolute ways for making friends with the opposite sex, many of them usually do not know what to do when in face of the opposite sex. Besides, students often suffer stress induced by “a sense of insecurity” when they are dating someone. They are worried that they may lose their dates and their parents or friends may have negative views of their dates.Therefore, developing a heterosexual relationship is a challenge and also a stressor forstudents (Wang and Ko, 1999).

5. Social factor

With the progress of human civilization and increasing plurality of our society,people need to play more roles. In the workplace, people may be a subordinate, a supervisor, a boss, a colleague to other employees, a member of an organization or a leader; at home, people need to be the wife or husband to our spouse, mother or father to our children or daughter or son to our parents. Even in our leisure life, people may need to be a friend toothers. Therefore, stress is ubiquitous in modern life. Formation of stress is highly associated with the social environment. Stress arises not only in a complicated and competitive environment but also in a monotonous and stimulus-less one (Feng, 1992).

METHODOLOGY

The participants were drawn from undergraduate students of North South University, East West University and Brac(N = 100); formerly self- administered questionnaires were given to a population of 100 undergraduate students, out of this, 100 questionnaires were duly completed and returned, giving 100% return rate. This return rate was consideredsufficient for this type of survey (McCarty et al., 2007; Saunders and Thomhil, 2007). This sample population consisted of 60 male and 30 female students.

SamplingSampling method applied in this study was a convenient random sampling. The participants were addressed before the questionnaires were administered during lecture time, and were informed of the purpose of the research and the importance of their participation. They were given enough time to complete the questionnaire. This time was found to be appropriate given that the questionnaire was only a page and a half. The questionnaires were administered to the students of the faculty of business, and students from other faculties within the university who are taking business courses as electives and options in different levels of their academic programmes at the university.

Data Analysis:

The aim of this study was to test the following research questions; How many hours do the students study everyday? To what extent do students experience stress? What are the most common stressors among the students? Does it vary from university to university?

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The analysis of data was purely done quantitatively,. The analysis was done by calculating the percentage of respondents who gave a high ratingsymptoms and stressors questions. The results also indicated that students do experience stress related symptoms.

Below the students responses are classified into two categories:

Study pattern Study related stress

Study pattern:

The first five questions concentrates on the study pattern of the students. The first question of the questionnaire attempted to understand how regularly students of the three universities study. The results are shown below in a graphical presentation:

Regularity of study:

Chart:1

The table below shows the data represented in the above graph:

Yes No Total

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North South University 22 12 34

East West University 15 18 33

Brac university 10 23 33

Total 47 53 100Table:1In the above table we can observe the number of yes and no respondents based on universities. As we can see that the total number of students studying regularly is less than the total number of students who don’t study regularly. But this varies from university to university, as we can see the number of yes responses is more in the case of North South University, twenty two of yes respondents and twelve of no respondents. In the case of East West University its fifteen yes respondents and eighteen no respondents. In Brac ten students answered yes to the question and twenty three answered no. So we can observe that the number of yes respondents is higher in North South University.

Study hours:

In the research I also tried to find out the hours spent on studying between different university students. This shows us on an average how much time is spent of the students in studies:

The table below shows the value of the illustrated in the above chart:

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Table:2

University 20-14 less than 14 TotalNorth South University 8 26 34East West University 13 20 33Brac University 11 22 33Total 32 68 100

The other two options in the questionnaire given in this particular question isn’t shown here as it is of no use, since none choose those two options as their answers. The chart above shows the universities in x-axis and the number of students in y-axis. We can observe that most of the students in all the universities study less than 14 hours per week. A small number of people study between 14-20 hours every week. This varies from university to university as we can see that the number of students studying less than 14 hours a week is higher in North South University compared to other universities. The number of students studying in the range of 14-20 hours per week is higher for Brac university.

Institutional pressure on students:

While trying to figure out the instituitional pressure on students, that is how much the students feel that they are pressurized from the university, I found out that most of the students from all the universities feel that they are pressurized to a high extent by their instituitions.

Chart:3

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Table:3

Yes No TotalNorth South University 32 2 34East West University 30 3 33Brac University 32 1 33Total 94 6 100

The above table and chart show us the data that I collected from the question. As we can see a majority of students in all the universities express that they are highly pressurized from their instituitions. In Chart 3 the x-axis is showing the number of students and in the y-axis the names of universities. As we can see, in North South University 32 students answered that they have heavy pressure from the instituition, in East West University 30 and in Brac 32 students answered that they have a lot of academic pressure. A very small number of people answered negatively in this case. So it can be inferred that most of the university students feel that they are heavily pressurized from their organizations.

Assignment completion:

Assignments are a major part of the curriculum of university life. It is important to understand the processes the students follow to complete these assignments.

Chart:4

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

NorthSouth

University

East WestUniversity

BracUniversity

Assignment completion

Copy paste from internet

Make someone else doit

Help from friends

By myself

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Table:4

By myselfHelp from friends

Make someone else do it

Copy paste from internet total

North South University24 10 0 0 34East West University 32 1 0 0 33Brac University 30 3 0 0 33Total 86 14 0 0 100

As we can see from the above graph and chart, most of the students in the universities attempt to do all the assignments, homeworks and research papers by themselves. Only a few tend to take help from their friends. Here we can see the number of respondents who answered that they did all the assignments by themselves in North South University is lower than other university students. This is an important finding as it will play a significant role in the finding of this research paper.

Effort required in courses:

The effort required in courses varies from one course to another. It even varies from student to student and university to university. The following chart shows the comparison of effort required for courses:

Chart: 5

Table 5:yes no always sometimes Total

North South University 32 0 0 2 34East West University 22 0 5 6 33Brac University 20 0 0 13 33Total 74 0 5 21 100

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As we can see, thirty-two students in North South University stated that their courses required much effort from them. Compared to other universities, the number is quite high. This indicates that they believe that courses they have to complete is very hard. The majority of students in East West and Brac feel the same way about effort required in courses.

Study Related Stress:

Study related stress section emphasizes on the stress level and stress related patterns faced by the students. The ending three questions in the questionnaire were on this particular aspect.

Time for Leisure Activities:

Chart:6

Table:6

Yes NoI get a lot of time Leisure, what is that? Total

North South University 5 18 0 11 34East West University 3 20 1 9 33Brac University 6 17 3 7 33Total 14 75 4 27 100

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As we can observe from the above-mentioned charts, the number of No respondents are high in all the three universities. The number is highest for East West University. Some of the respondents also answered that they had no idea about leisure, depicting their frustration with the amount of pressure they are handling. A small number of respondents did answer that they get a lot of time and some answered that they get enough time for leisure related activities. But the overall majority believe that they don’t get enough time for leisure activities from their universities.

Sources of Academic Stress:

When asked about the Sources of Academic Stress, the students rated institutional pressure as the most prominent source of academic stress.

Chart:7

Table:7

Studies/Academic pressure Family life Jobs

Relationship problems Total

North South University20 5 6 3 34East West University 15 4 4 10 33Brac University 24 2 2 5 33Total 79 11 12 18 100

The chart shows that in the case of all the three universities, the biggest source of stress is their studies. Relationship problem is the second most source of stress for students, while the rest of the students responded that their life is more stressful because of family life and jobs. We can see that students from North South University had a higher number of

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students who had jobs and responded that jobs were the source of pressure for them. This result depicts that students in North South University are more prone to having jobs before graduation.

Symptoms of Stress:

In the questionnaire I listed symptoms of stress and told the respondents to mark the ones that they face. The results are:

Chart:8

Table:8North South East West Brac

Sleep deprivation 50% 40% 60%Staying angry all the time 12% 5% 3%Being anxious all the time 60% 30% 25%Can’t stop thinking about my

course pressure/academic pressure 25% 12% 15%Constant fear about falling

grades 40% 12% 10%Anxiety about future job

prospect 70% 35% 49%Trouble concentrating 20% 15% 23%Have to take drugs to relax 0% 0% 0%

These findings are particularly important because as we can see the students face stress related symptoms to a large extent. Most of the students suffer from sleep deprivation,

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constant anxiety regarding grades and future job prospects. From the findings we can see that the worst sufferers of stress symptoms are students of North South University. The students here have a high level of stress symptoms showing. Students in Brac University suffer from severe sleep deprivation; most of the students there have complained that they don’t sleep at night due to course pressure.

V. Conclusion and suggestions

From the above analysis we don’t find any direct proof that the students of North South University do face more stress than other private university students. However it is found that they show more stress related symptoms than other private university students. In fact, they are more concerned about their studies and job related prospects compared to other universities. From the last question we can see that the students studying show many symptoms that is related with academic stress. So we can conclude that the students of North South University do face more stress than other private university students. Here are some suggestions which can be implemented to reduce this stress:

(1) Identify students’ stress as soon as possible and provide adequate supportUniversity should provide more support and care to help students cope with variousstressors and identify students having stress reactions as soon as possible. Besides, through use of emotion-related questionnaires, schools can keep a close eye on students’ physical and mental conditions and provide consulting services to avoid development of physical or mental problems in students. If necessary, schools can also refer students to professional consulting institutions.

(2) Incorporate career development issues into formal curriculaCollege students feel relatively more stressors in the career aspect. Schools are thussuggested to design a flexible course of career education based on students’ future careerdevelopment. This course must cover psychological, mental, social, and cultural contentsand be incorporated into formal curriculam of each department.

(3) Design general curriculum on stress and stress-coping strategiesInsufficiency of stress-related courses is a common problem among universities. As modern people at all age levels are faced with increasing stress in life, how to pursue well-being and enhance stress management abilities has become essential knowledge formodern people and job-seekers. Hence, schools should design and offer stress-relatedcourses to help university students understand the meaning of well-being and learn how to cope with stress-induced problems.

(4) Pay attention to students’ stress in learningSchools should pay attention to students’ troubles with learning and applyappropriate strategies to enhance their learning effectiveness. In addition, schools shouldprovide courses on life stress coping on a regular basis to consolidate students’ psychologyand teach them how to relax themselves along with stress management skills. Throughproper education, students are able to identify stressors, manage them, and seek support.

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Teachers should also assist students with inferior academic achievement to minimize their troubles with learning.

2. Suggestions for students(1) Effectively manage emotions and develop an optimistic view of lifeUniversity students should pay attention to their physical and mental health and examine their emotions at all times to avoid onset of stress-induced depression or physical disorders. Besides, they should learn to understand, accept, and recognize themselves, take a positive attitude toward getting along with their friends, learn to express and manage their emotions, and effectively manage their emotions so as to develop positive relations and an optimistic view of life. In their learning process, they should cultivate an undaunted spirit.

Once any stress-induced emotion arises, they should relax the emotion through anappropriate channel, examine their own problems, and seek solutions. Suppression ofemotions is not the only approach to controlling emotions. In face of stress, they can take a different perspective and learn to cope with it by changing their views. Stress-inducedemotions can be self-managed.

(2) Increase stress management abilities and learn to seek supportUniversity students should play an active role in stress management. On the other, they should also enhance their emotions management abilities, monitor their emotions, and build their own emotions management models. If any stress arises, they should analyze the causes of the stress from a positive perspective and seek solutions or support from professional institutions.

(3) Make use of family support and release stress-reduced emotionsFamily support is helpful for students faced with stress, no matter how they are to the stress. While college students should take advantage of family support, their family members should try to understand their interests, specialties, and abilities so as to avoid having too high expectations of them and causing them additional stress.

Limitations and directions for future researchThis study has several limitations; generalisation of this study is questionable. The sample of the study was too small since only students who were taking business related courses were sampled for the study. This research is also limited by methodology used; study involving inter disciplines in order to find out how different programmes are perceived by students in terms of their stress levels should be conducted.

Future research should use larger sample size from other institutions to validate these findings. The findings will help the individual students, scholars, lecturers, career and counselling centres, and the University administrators in putting into place mechanisms that moderate the effects of stress at the University. The finding also will spur scholarly debate on academic stress among students in higher institutions.

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Chang K, Lu L (2007). Characteristics of organisational culture, stressors and wellbeing: The case of Taiwanese organisations, J. Manage. Psychol. 22 (6): 549-568.Cohen J, Single LE (2001). An examination of the perceived impact of flexible work arrangement on professional opportunities in public accounting. J. Bus. Ethics 32 (4): 317-9.Daniels K, Harris C (2000). Work, well being and performance, Occup. Med. , 50(5): 304-349.Danna K, Griffin RW (1999). Health and well being in the workplace: a review and synthesis of the literature, J. Manage., (25) 357.Dua JK (1994). Job Stressors and Their Effects on Physical Health, Emotional Health, and Job Satisfaction in a University, J. Educ.Admin. 32 (1): 59-78.Dyck D (2001). “The toxic workplace”, Benefits Canada, 25 (3) 52. Elfering A, Grebner S, Semmer NK, Kaier-Freiburghaus D, Lauper-DelPonte S, Witschi I (2005). Chronic job stressors and job control: effects on event-related coping success and well-being, J. Occup. Organisational Psychol. (78): 237-52.Ellison KW (2004). Stress and the Police Officer, 2nd ed., Charles C. Thomas Publishers, Springfield, IL, 71-86.Erkutlu HV, Chafra J (2006). Relationship between leadership power bases and job stress of subordinates: example from boutique hotels,Manage. Res. News 29(5): 285-297.Fairbrother K, Warn J (2003). Workplace Dimensions, Stress and Job Satisfaction, J. Managerial Psychol. 18(1): 8-21.Finlayson M (2003). Improving the wellbeing of teachers in Scotland, Scott. Educ. J., 87(1): 18-19.Gibbons RM, Gibbons B (2007) Occupational stress in chef professional, Int. J. Contemp. Hospitality Management, (19): 32-42.Goodman ED (1993). How to handle the stress of being a student. Imprint, 40: 43.Grawitch MJ, Trares S, Kohler JM (2007), Healthy Workplace Practicesand Employee Outcome, Int. J. Stress Manage. 14(3): 275-293.

AppendixQuestionnaire on Stress of studies on Students of Private Universities

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The following survey contains questions about the stress that private university students face because of their studies. The purpose of this study is to compare the stress level of students from different universities. ( All the information you provide will be kept private)

General Subject Information:

Gender: Male Female

Age: ……………………………………………………………………………….

University: …………………………………………………………………………

Degree: …………………………………………………………………………….

Survey Questions

1. Do you study every day?

Yes No

2. How many hours in a week do you spend in studying, doing assignments and project/ research related work?

More than 30 hours 25-30 20-25 14-20 Less than 14 hours

3. Do you think that your university puts a lot of study pressure on you?

Yes No

4. You complete your assignments, research papers and homework by:

Do it all by myself Take help from friends Make someone else do it Copy paste it from the internet

5. Do your courses require much effort from you?

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Yes No Always Sometimes

6. Do you get ample time for relaxing, leisure activities? Yes No I have a lot of time for myself Leisure… what is that?

7. Which one puts the most amount of stress on you? Studies/Academic pressure Family life Job Relationship problems

8. Listed below are some of the stress/workload related problems, mark the ones which are faced by you:

Sleep deprivation Staying angry all the time Being anxious all the time Can’t stop thinking about my course pressure/academic pressure Constant fear about falling grades Anxiety about future job prospect Trouble concentrating Have to take drugs to relax

To: Dr. Deena P. ForkanFrom: M Mahmudur Rashid Date: November 23, 2011

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Re: Proposal to do a research paper on study related stress on students of North South University

Introduction:

The topic that I am interested in for doing a research is the comparative stress of studies between the students of North South University and students of other universities. As I have observed that this university has some differences from other universities in its curriculum and courses. The procedures in the university have some differences too. For example in other universities there are no English courses, where we have two English courses mandatory for the students of BBA department. Our advising procedure is different from how other universities allocate courses to their students. Even the teaching procedure is different too. Some of our courses are just taught based on PowerPoint slides whereas in other universities the same course might be based on a book. Many of the students seen in this university are busy all semester long and always complaining about the course pressure and stress they face. While other university students seem to be more relaxed and comfortable with the study load they face. This is the aspect that I want to research on. I want to know if North South University puts higher pressure on their students, or its just the complaining attitude of the students that make them seem stressed.

Areas to be studied:

The areas that I have determined that I would study in are-

Comparison of time spent of students studying on a regular basis Comparison of assignments, home work and class work Students ways of completing the assignments The effort given by students in their courses Time spent on recreational activities/ leisure

Hypothesis:

My hypothesis would be to form a comparable analysis of study related pressure between the students of North South University and students of other private universities. I intend to find out how much students give effort to their education on the basis of different universities. Also I would research on the universities effort to bring the best out of students.

Methodology:

To do this research I would need to collect data. For this data my primary source will be the survey I would be doing by going to different universities. The secondary source for my data will be different articles published in newspapers, magazines and other related research papers.

TimeTable:

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Proposal submission 23-11-2011Data collection (24-11-2011-26-11-2011)Write up (26-11-2011-30-11-2011)Final submission 1-12-2011Presentation 17-12-2011

Request For Approval:

I request your approval for my research topic. I am open to any kind of suggestions.

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