The Relationship Between Social Support and Academic Stress Among First Year Students at Syiah Kuala University
The Relationship Between Social Support and Academic Stress Among First Year Students at Syiah Kuala University
The Relationship Between Social Support and Academic Stress Among First Year Students at Syiah Kuala University
Jurnal Psikoislamedia
Volume 1, Nomor 1, April 2016
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL SUPPORT AND ACADEMIC
STRESS AMONG FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT SYIAH KUALA
UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between social support and academic
stress among first year students at Syiah Kuala University (UNSYIAH). Data was collected through
questionnaires. The respondents were first year students at UNSYIAH (n = 364) with ranging age
from 16 to 21. Respondents completed the Multi Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support
(MSPSS) and Student Life Stress Inventory (SLSI). Pearson Correlation Analysis was used to
analyze the relationship between social support and academic stress among first year students. The
results revealed that the sample reported moderate levels of social support and academic stress.
Students with high level of social support, reported low level of academic stress.
Introduction
In our real life, everybody experiences many changes. Human life cycle begins from the
prenatal period to old age. It is always colored with various life changes. Some of these changes
happen during the school period. Many transitions are experienced by students during their school,
home to school, middle school to high school and high school to college or work (Galaway &
Hudson, 1996). First-year university students faced with numerous challenges that caused by
increasing the number of students in developed countries (Pillay & Ngcobo, 2010). Students’ life,
especially during the first year, is a period of vulnerability during which young students establish,
test and adjust new psychological identities (Bitz, 2010). Transition to university involves adapting
to a new academic and social environment, this transition can be stressful for the students (Dalziel
& Peat, 1998).
The transition to university life is often looked upon as a positive event but the changes in
university life can sometimes be stressful to the student. Stress is a physical and mental response to
everyday demands, particulary those associated with change (Agolla & Ongori, 2009). Among
college students, stress can be viewed as a positive or negative experience that affects their life and
Research Objectives
The aims of this study are to examine the relationship between social support and academic
stress among the first year students. The hypotheses in this study are “There is no significant
correlation between social support and academic stress among first year students”.
Literature Review
Research Method
The approach used in this study is the quantitative method. Quantitative is based on the idea
that social phenomena can be quantified, measured, and expressed numerically (Azwar, 2010). In
this research, independent variables are social support and the dependent variable is academic
stress. Furthermore, in this study survey method and questionnaires were used. Survey is a widely
Table 1.
Categorization Level Criteria of Social Support
Table 2.
Categorization Level Criteria of Academic Stress
Table 2 showed that high categorization of academic stress ranged from 51 to 127, moderate
categorization of academic stress ranged from 128 to 162, and the low categorization of academic
stress ranged from 163 to 204. In other words, higher values obtained in the scale indicated the
normal feeling in academic stress and lower values indicated the severe feeling in academic stress.
Demographic Information
A brief demographic questionnaire was used to obtain background characteristics of the
participants. There are six items in this section, namely, age, gender, semester, GPA, and faculty.
Research Procedure
Participants of this study were first year students in UNSYIAH. Questionnaires comprised
three instruments as mentioned earlier and were distributed to the students. Before that, the
instruments were translated in the Indonesian Language. This is carried out because the participants
as a whole use the Indonesian Language. This study was conducted from August to September
2012.
During the survey process, participants were given the scales and the researcher waited until
they completed all the instruments. This step was taken to minimize the loss of questionnaires.
Data Analyses
All the analyses in this study were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social
Science software (SPSS) 17.0. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample. The
descriptive analysis involved the mean, percentage, frequency, and standard deviation. Moreover,
Cronbach Alpha analysis was used to check the reliability of the instruments. As for the inferential
statistical analysis, Pearson Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between
social support and academic stress.
Table 3.
Table 4.
Validity for SLSI
Based on Table 4 it is concluded that all items in SLSI are valid because the corrected item-
total correlation value ranged from .33 to .58.
Research Result
The term descriptive statistics refers to the methods that are used to summarize and describe
data. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data in a study and provide
simple summaries about the sample and the measures (Aron, Aron, & Coups, 2009). In this section,
the researcher used descriptive statistics to examine characteristics of participants based on the
demographic information.
Profile of Participants
The population in this study was all of the first year students at Syiah Kuala University
(UNSYIAH). The total population was 5085 students (BJM UNSYIAH). Using Slovin formula
(Argyrous, 2005), the appopriate sample was 380 students. Therefore, a total of 380 questionnaires
were distributed and 364 questionnaires were returned.
Out of the 364 respondents analysed, 149 were male (40.9%) and 215 were female (59.1%).
Respondents were between 16 to 21 years old and the mean of age was 18.87 (SD = 0.68). All
participants were in their first year of studies and were unmarried. Majority of the respondents were
from the Faculty of Medicine, 62 students (17.0%). Their current CGPA mean was 3.11 (SD = .30).
The details of the respondents profile is shown in Table 5.
Table 5.
Profile of Participants
Table 6.
Frequency and Percentage of Social Support Level
As shown in Table 6, the majority of participants had moderate level of social support with
174 participants (47.8%), followed by high level of social support with 121 participants (33.2%),
and low level of social support with 69 participants (18.9%).
In this research, academic stress is operationally defined as the score of SLSI. The lower
scores indicate high level of stress in the academic field and the higher scores indicate low level of
stress in the academic field. The maximum scores which can be obtained were 204, whereas the
minimum scores were 51. As mentioned in chapter 3, scores of 51 to 127 indicate high level of
academic stress, 128 to 162 indicate moderate level of academic stress, and scores of above 163
indicate low level of academic stress.
The majority of the respondents reported moderate level of academic stress, M = 146.98 (SD
= 18.27). The distribution of participants based on their academic stress level is presented in Table
7.
Table 7.
Frequency and Percentage of Academic Stress Level
As shown in Table 7, the majority of participants had moderate level of academic stress with
147 participants (40.3%), followed by low level of academic stress with 117 participants (32.1%),
and high level of academic stress with 100 participants (27.4%).
Inferential statistics are the statistics that are used to analyze sample data, and the results
will be generalized to the population from which the sample was chosen. In other word, inferential
statistics try to make various inferences against a set of data derived from a sample (Azwar, 2010).
The results of normality and linearity tests were presented first in this section. Then, the results of
the hypothesis testing follows.
Table 8.
One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test
Variables M SD p
Social Support 19.09 4.25 .20
Academic Stress 145.08 18.13 .06
Based on Table 8, it can be concluded that the sample data of this study was normally
distributed.
Next, linearity test aims to determine whether two or more variables have a linear
relationship. This test is commonly used as a prerequisite in the analysis of linear regression. Two
or more variables are said to have a linear relationship when the linearity test revealed a significant
result. The data with significant result is showed with p < .05 (Azwar, 2010). The results of linearity
test is summarized in Table 9.
Table 9.
Test of Linearity
Social Support
Academic Stress Df F p
Linearity 1 102.49 .00
Deviation from Linearity 22 2.11 .00
Total 363
From Table 9, it can be concluded that the relationship between academic stress and social
support.
Table 10.
Implication of Research
There are two theoretical implications of this study. First, the results of this study could be
associated with the concept of coping by Lazarus and Folkman (1986), specifically the problem-
focused coping. Problem-focused coping is used when individuals have perception of stressors that
can be changed and addressed. Lazarus and Folkman (1986) describes that one of the coping
strategy to deal with stress under the problem-focused coping is by seeking social support such as
finding sources of information support, social support and emotional support. Therefore, it can be
concluded that the findings of this research support the concept of coping as described by Lazarus
and Folkman (1986).
Second, the results of this study revealed that there was a negative significant correlation
between social support and academic stress among first year students at UNSYIAH. It means
students with high level of social support experience low level of academic stress. This result
supports the theory of social support by Sarafino (2006) who explained the two theoretical models
to determine how social support works within the individual, namely the buffering hypothesis and
the direct effect hypothesis as mention in previous chapters.
This study isn’t only have theoretical implications, this study have four practical
implications. First, for first year university students there is a need for them to increase
understanding of academic stressors and learn how to increase adjustment and social support. This
is important because as shown in this study, students who have high level of social support and
References
Aldwin, C. M. (1994). Stress, coping, and development: An integrative perspective. New York:
Guilford. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Argyrous, G. (2005). Statistics for Research with a Guide to SPSS. California : SAGE Publications.
Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Coups, E. (2009). Statistics for Psychology. New York: Pearson Prentice
Hall.
Badan Jaminan Mutu Universitas Syiah Kuala. (BJM Unsyiah). Retrieved from
http://bjm.unsyiah.ac.id/index.php/Pengurus-BJM.bjm.
Bitz, K. (2010). Measuring advisor relationship perceptions among first-year students at a small
Midwestern University. NACADA Journal, 30(2), 53-64.
Bokhorst, C. L., Sumter, S. R., & Westenberg, P. M. (2010). Social support from parents, friends,
classmates, and teachers in children and adolescents aged 9 to 18 years: who is perceived
as most supportive?. Blackwell Publishing, Social Development, 19(2), 417-426.
Dalziel, J. R. & Peat, M. (1998). Fostering Collaborative Learning During Student Transition to
Tertiary Education: An Evaluation of Academic and Social Benefits. In Improving
Student Learning. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.
Dwyer, A. L., & Cummings, A. L. (2001). Stress, self-efficacy, social support, and coping strategies
in university students. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 35(3), 208-220.
Dziegielewski, S. F., Roest-Martl, S. & Turnage, B. (2004). Addressing stress with social work
students: a controlled evaluation. Journal of Social Work Education, 40, 105–119.
Fauziah, S. N. (2012). Pengaruh bimbingan orang tua terhadap pemilihan lanjutan studi anak di
perguruan tinggi. (Banda Aceh). Bimbingan Konseling, Universitas Syiah Kuala.
Fisher, S. (1994). Stress in Academic Life: The Mental Assembly Line. New York: Open University
Press.
Fisher, S., & Cooper, C. L. (1990). On the Move : the Psychology of Change and Transition. New
York : John Wiley and Sons.
Galaway, B., and Hudson, J. (1996). Youth in Transition: Perspectives on Research and Policy.
Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc., Toronto.
Green, R. G., Bretzin, A., Leininger, C. & Stauffer, R. (2001). Research learning Attributes of
Graduate Students in Social Work, Psychology and Business. Journal of Social Work
Education, 37, 333–341.
Hillman, K., (2005), The First Year Experience: The Transition from Secondary School to
University and TAFE in Australia. Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth, Research
Report 40, Australian Council for Educational Research and the Australian Government
Department of Education, Science and Training.
Holden, G., Cuzzi, L., Spitzer, W., Rutter, S., Chernack, P., & Rosenberg, G. (1997). The hospital
social work self-efficacy scale. Health & Social Work, 22, 256–263.
House, J. S., (1987). Social support and social structure. Eastern Sociological Society, 2(1), 135-
146.
Jogaratnam, G., & Buchanan, P. (2004). Balancing the demands of school and work: stress and
employed hospitality students. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 16(4), 237-245.
Jung, J. (1989). The relationship of daily hassles, social support, and coping to depression in black
and white students. Journal of General Psychology, 116, 407-417.
Karjuniwati & Nashori, F. (2007). Religiusitas remaja aceh korban bencana pasca 1 tahun tsunami.
Naskah Publikasi : Fakultas Psikologi & Ilmu sosial Budaya, Universitas Islam
Indonesia.
Kwan, M., Cairney, J., & Faulkner, G. (2012). Physical activity and other health-risk behaviors
during the transition into early adulthood: A longitudinal cohort study. American Journal
of Preventive Medicine, 42(1), 14-20.
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S, (1984). Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York: Springer.
Lazarus, R. S., (1966). Psychological Stress and the Coping Process. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lazarus, R. S., (1991). Emotion and Adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lazarus, R. S, (1993). Coping Theory and Research: Past, Present, and Future. Psychosomatic
Medicine, 55, 234–247.
Levine, M., & Perkins, D. V. (1997). Community Psychology. Oxford: Unversity Press.
Misra, R., McKean, M., West, S., & Russo, T. (2000). Academic stress of college students:
Comparison of student and faculty perceptions. College Student Journal, 34, 236–245.
Misra, R., & Castillo, S. G. (2004). Academic stress among college students: comparison of
american and international students. International Journal of Stress Management, 11(2),
132–148.
Pillay, A. L., & Ngcobo, H. S. B. (2010). Sources of stress and support among rural-based first-year
university students: an exploratory study. South African Journal of Psychology, 40(3),
234-240.
Salami, S. O. (2011). Psychosocial predictors of adjustment among first year college of education
students. US-China Education Review, 8(2), 239-248.
Sand, J. K., Robinson, Kurpius, S. E., & Dixon Rayle, A. (2005). Academic stress and social
support factors in Latino and Euro-American male and female college students.
Manuscript submitted for publication.
Sarafino, E.P. (1998). Health Psychology: Biopsychosocial Interactions (3th ed.). USA: Wiley.
Sarafino, E.P. (2006). Health Psychology: Biopsychosocial Interactions (5th ed.). USA: Wiley.
Sarason, B. R., Shearin, E. N., Pierce, G. R., & Sarason, I. G. (1987). Interrelations of social
support measures: Theoretical and practical implications. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 52, 813-832.
Schwitzer, A. M., McGovern, T. V., & Robbins, S. B. (1991). Adjustment outcomes of a freshman
seminar: A utilization-focused approach. Journal of College Student Development, 32,
484-489.
Smith, T., & Renk, K. (2007). Predictors of academic-related stress in college students: An
examination of coping, social support, parenting, and anxiety. NASPA Journal, 44(3),
405-431.
Thaib, U. H. A., & Hariyadi, J. (2005). Nasehat & Pelajaran dari Indonesia Menangis, Refleksi
Atas Musibah Aceh & Bencana Beruntun di Indonesia. Ditinjau dari Kaca Mata Islam.
Surabaya, Larayba Bima Amanta (eLBA).
Ting, L., Morris, K. J., McFeaters, S. J., & Eustice, L. (2006). Multiple roles, stressors, and needs
among baccalaureate social work students: An exploratory study. Journal of
Baccalaureate Social Work, 12, 39-55.
Ting, S. R., & Robinson, T. L. (1998). First-year academic success: A prediction combining
cognitive and psychosocial variables for Caucasian and African American students.
Journal of College Student Development, 39, 599-610.
Tinto, V. (1995). Keynote address to the Inaugural Pan Pacific First Year Experience Conference,
Brisbane, Australia.
Tinto, V. (1996). Reconstructing the first year of college. Planning for Higher Education, 25(1), 1-
6.
Verheijden, M. W., Bakx, J. C., van Weel, C., Koelen, M. A. & van Staveren, W. A. (2005). Role
of social support in lifestyle focused weight management interventions. European
Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 59, 179-186.
Wilks, S. E. (2008). Resilience amid Academic Stress: The moderating impact of social support
among social work students. Advances in Social Work, 9(2), 106-125.
Wilks, S. E. and Spivey, C. A. (2009) Resilience in undergraduate social work students: Social
support and adjustment to academic stress. Social Work Education, 1, 1-2.
Yasin, M. S., & Dzulkifli, M. A. (2010). The Relationship between Social Support and
Psychological Problems Among Students. International Journal of Business and Social
Science, 3(1), 110-116.
Yasin, M. S., & Dzulkifli, M. A. (2011). The Relationship between Social Support and Academic
Achievement. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 5(1), 277-281.
Zimet, G. D., Dahlem, N. W., Zimet, S. G., & Farley, G. K. (1988). The Multidimensional Scale of
Perceived Social Support. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52, 30-41.
Zimet, G. D., Powell, S. S., Parley, G. K., Werkman, S., & Berkoff, K. A. (1990). Psychometric
characteristics of the multidimensional scale of perceived social support. Journal of
Personality Assessment, 33(3), 610-617.