Gender and Year of Study as a Predictor of Life Pressures Research Project Presentation March 30,...

Gender and Year of Study as a Predictor of Life Pressures

Research Project PresentationMarch 30, 2000Jennifer DroverLaura Peddle

Introduction and Background Information

The university student faces daily challenges, obstacles, and pressures. Pressure is a very important part of life, and without it the world would become monotonous and boring.

However, too much pressure can become overwhelming. There needs to be just enough pressure to challenge but not crush the individual.

Introduction continued...

Psychological health is an important issue for university students.

Studying for a degree demands a high level of cognitive functioning: students must be able to assimilate and integrate a constant flow of new information, organize their workloads, and prepare for examinations.

Undergraduate education is, at times, a highly pressurized and demanding experience for the student. (Tyrell & Smith, 1996).

Research Question

Does gender and/or year of study affect pressure felt in the areas of academics, social life, and appearance?

Hypothesis

Our experimental hypothesis was, (1) that males experience greater pressure to successfully perform in academics than females. (2) Females experience greater pressure in social and appearance areas than males.

Null Hypothesis

Our null hypothesis was therefore, (1) that males experience no more, or less pressure to perform in academics. (2) Females feel no more, or less pressure in social and appearance aspects of daily living than males.

Why did we choose this as our hypothesis?

Based on our literature review, males will have more academic pressure than females because, although gender roles are rapidly changing, historically, traditional roles have made men the “breadwinners”.

Traditional roles have encouraged males to become successful leaders, achievers, and providers, with pressure to progress toward career oriented goals.

Why we chose continued...

Females appear to have greater expectations in their social life and appearance, which could be attributed to magazine and television stereotypes.

Variables

The independent variables under investigation were gender and year of study, which were both quasi-independent.

The dependant variables were the scores obtained on the survey assessing pressure felt in 3 different life areas. The three levels are: academic, social, and appearance.

Design

The survey is compiled of 3 categories: (1) Academic (2) Social (3) Appearance

Each subsection contained 5 questions, which were rated on a likert-type scale, measured from 1 to 5, with 1 being strongly disagree, and 5 being strongly agree.

Design continued...

Some questions were reverse-coded to prevent halo effects.

The scoring sheet indicates that the minimum score a subject could achieve was a 5, and the maximum score was a 25.

The higher the score, the more pressure felt by the individual.

Procedure

A convenient sample of residence students at Acadia University was taken from Chase Court to participate in our study.

There was a total of sixty participants, thirty males and thirty females.

Ten males and ten females from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year of study were surveyed.

Procedure continued...

After collecting the data from the 60 participants, each section of the surveys were scored and tallied separately and comparisons were made across groups.

SPSS 9.0 was used to complete a one way analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to determine if there was a significant difference in gender, year of study, and the pressure scores attained on the three areas of life expectations.

Results

Mean Academic Scores

1st 2nd 3rd Overall

Females 18.70 16.80 18.07 18.07

Males 16.00 16.00 17.90 16.63

For the academic pressure portion of our study, a significant main effect existed for gender, F (1, 54) = 5.517, p < .05.

Females on average scored higher on academic pressures (M= 18.07, SD= 2.43) than males scored (M= 16.63, SD= 2.62).

There is no significant main effect for year of study on academic scores, and there is also no significant interaction between gender and year of study on academic scores.

Results continued...

Mean Social Scores

1st 2nd 3rd Overall

Females 16.40 14.20 16.20 15.60

Males 16.60 15.80 15.30 15.90

For the social pressure portion of our study, there was no significant main effect for gender, or year of study. There was also no significant interaction between gender and year of study on social scores.


Mean Appearance Scores

1st 2nd 3rd Overall

Females 13.30 14.20 16.40 14.63

Males 15.40 14.20 13.90 14.50

For the appearance pressure portion of our study, there was no significant main effect for gender, or year of study. There was also no significant interaction between gender and year of study on the appearance scores.


There was a significant correlation between score obtained in the areas of social and appearance. If either of these were rated as high, it was also likely that the other would be rated as high pressure. There were no other significant correlations found among the other dependant variables.

Discussion

Our results did not support our hypothesis, females show a significant difference between males on their academic pressure scores. On average, females rated having higher pressure relating to academics than did males.

There were no significant differences for gender or year of study in the areas of social and appearance.

Discussion continued...

The portion of our hypothesis that predicted males would report feeling more pressure on academics than females was based on previous studies that suggest this is so due to traditional gender roles. However, these roles are changing, as women become more equal partners in organizations with greater work opportunities and less limits placed upon them.


Today, men bear more family responsibilities than in the past. As these roles continue to change, the external circumstances (stresors) for men and women will also continue to change (Jick & Mitz, 1985).

This is one possibility of why females scored higher on the academic portion of the survey.


The minimum score one could could obtain on the survey was 5, the maximum score was 25. Generally, males and females all scored around the same areas of 16-18 in the different categories.

This could be the result of inaccurate measuring of pressures felt, or it could be that this time of year, students are generally more stressed than usual.


The survey used was one designed by us, with questions we felt were relevant to pressures felt, however, other students may not have viewed the same situations as stressful. Therefore a standardized test for pressure may have resulted in more accurate results.


Our survey also only consisted of 15 questions, perhaps a longer questionnaire would include a more variable list of situations and thus people may relate to them better.

Although most of our results were not significant, the results of this survey do show that undergraduate students are under fairly high amounts of pressure.


While most people do experience anxiety and pressure at some time in their lives, however, prolonged periods of distress can seriously impair a student’s ability to complete work on time and concentrate on his or her studies. While it may not be possible to eliminate the causes of such pressure, students can be trained how to anticipate and manage the demands of undergraduate curriculum.


There have been several reports published on the benefits of student support services, study skills programs, and stress reduction workshops. Some of these preventative measures might be included as a routine part of undergraduate curriculum, as preparing students how to deal with stress at the undergraduate level may reduce the possibility of burnout later (Tyrrell & Smith, 1996).


Further research is needed to explore the stressful and pressure-related aspects of undergraduate education, and to evaluate different methods of addressing the problem of pressure felt by undergraduate university students.

Gender and Year of Study as a Predictor of Life Pressures Research Project Presentation March 30,...

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