Presenter(s)

Aidan Paul Koch

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Description

Academic workload and extracurricular involvement can be sources of stress for college students Academic workload is characterized as the student's major, course work and future graduate school and/or career path plans. Extracurricular involvement can pertain from anything to intramural sports to being the President of a student organization. The current research seeks to investigate changes in mental and physical health over a semester by examining physiological stress levels in college students, in conjunction with academic workload and extracurricular involvement. Previous research finds an association between stress and physical health (Peer, Hillman, Van Hoet 2015). Studies have shown sympathetic nervous system activation due to stressors in people’s lives (Conley & Lehman, 2012). Mental Health has also been shown to decrease when stress is overwhelming in the lives of college students (Murff, 2005). The goal of the present work is to examine academic workload, extracurricular involvement, physiological stress, and mental and physical health over the course of the semester to better understand how they are associated. Using a longitudinal design, participants will complete measures of mental and physical health, as well as academic workload and extracurricular involvement at the beginning and end of the fall semester. Physiological stress will be assessed at each time point by collecting a saliva sample from participants in order to measure the hormone cortisol.

Publication Date

4-18-2018

Project Designation

Honors Thesis

Primary Advisor

Erin Marie O'Mara

Primary Advisor's Department

Psychology

Keywords

Stander Symposium project

How Academic and Extracurricular Workload affects Stress Levels, and Consequently Mental and Physical Health of College Students

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