This article criticizes Liu, Ping, and Gao’ research that investigated the students’ mental well-being while experiencing their new university life. Generally, the study is found to be an excellent one. It meets the criteria of a research paper. For instance, it has a well-stated introduction with thesis statement, study method, materials, study findings, discussion, and an excellent conclusion. Thus, the article establishes that anxiety is correlated to both students’ academic performance and their psychological well-being. These findings are in line with the results of the previous studies, such as those of Bosco and Olea (2013) and Bryme (2000).
However, the authors fail to appreciate that some levels of anxiety may contribute positively to academic performance. For instance, new students are usually excited in their new learning institutions and often work hard to prove to the administration that they deserved a place in the institution. Another point of weakness in the article is that the research is limited to undergraduates. Perhaps, the authors could have included other levels of study, such as high school and post-graduate levels of study for better results. Overall, this article acknowledges the credibility of the research and its implications in the learning institutions.
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Changes in Undergraduate Students’ Psychological Well-Being as They Experience University Life
The article titled "Changes in undergraduate students' psychological well-being as they experience university life" is written by Xinqiao Liu, Siqing Ping, and Wenjuan Gao. The article investigates the students’ mental well-being while experiencing their new university life. The article evaluates how depression, anxiety, and levels of stress of full-time new university students changes as they embark on their new academic levels. Besides, the study offers a critical understanding of how depression, stress, and anxiety affect the psychological well-being of new college students. Finally, the research provides the effects of stress, anxiety, and depression on the students' academic achievements. Increased stress, anxiety levels, and depression have adverse effects on both academic performance and the college students’ psychological well-being.
The authors argue convincingly that an increased level of anxiety has adverse effects on academic performance. For instance, the authors establish that there is a strong relationship between the anxiety level and working memory. In this regard, high anxiety levels lead to poor working memory, and subsequently, a reduction in academic performance (Liu, Ping,& Gao, 2019). The authors' empirical findings indicate that anxiety is normal under normal circumstances. However, severe levels of anxiety may inflict serious problems for learners. Since new college students are usually anxious as they join university life, their academic performance levels are also affected. The authors’ claims coincide with the earlier research outcomes. For example, the research indicates that during the first three years of study, the Chinese college students recorded a significant increment in their levels of anxiety and a subsequent significant decrease in their academic performance.
Although the authors of this article argue that anxiety leads to reduced academic performance, they fail to appreciate that sometimes anxiety may lead to academic excellence. For example, the tension caused by anxiety may help in shaping the students' behavior (Shakir, 2014). Research shows that new students are usually more disciplined than the old students in any institution (Shakir, 2014). Practically, new students are often afraid of making mistakes in the institutions they join. Besides, new students are usually afraid of failure. This tension, therefore, may sometimes propel undergraduates to study hard and hence, excel academically. Perhaps, the authors would have been more realistic by appreciating that some forms of anxiety have positive academic Excellency. For instance, academic anxiety has a strong relationship with academic achievement (Shakir, 2014). Without anxiety, learners would relax, and the outcome is an overall educational overhaul in the learning institutions. However, it would be unfair to rule out the authors' findings. This is because high anxiety, in most circumstances, leads to academic failure.
The findings made by Xinqiao Liu, Siqing Ping, and Wenjuan Gao have some truth in them. For instance, a drop in academic performance is contributed by two primary factors. One of the factors is lack or minimal engagement in the classroom. Thus, students who pay little or no attention in classroom studies have a high tendency of failure (Liu, Ping, & Gao, 2019). The second factor is poor peer relationships. Students who have poor relationships with their academic peers are likely to fail in exams because they fail to engage in peer-to-peer learning (Liu, Ping, & Gao, 2019). Thus, such students waste a lot of energy trying to understand simple concepts, which would have otherwise been more accessible to understand through peer consultations and discussions. Since increased anxiety, leads to reduced classroom engagement, poor working memory, and poor peer relationships, it is also associated with poor academic performance. In the real sense, anxiety reduces students' concentration levels, and hence, their academic achievements. Therefore, just like the authors assert, high levels of anxiety are associated with adverse effects on the students' academic performances.
The article's findings are in line with the results of the previous researches. For example, a study conducted by Ali, Awan, Batool, and Muhammad in 2013indicates that there exists a significant link between anxiety level and English learning among secondary school students. The fact that anxiety may affect English learning is also evidence that anxiety may affect overall academic performance at large, as asserted by Liu, Ping, & Gao (2019). Another related article by Basco and Olea (2013) also indicates the presence of a prominent correlation between academic performance and the level of the students’ anxiety. For instance, it is observed that when biology freshmen students were subjected to anxiety due to a new change in the study environment, a considerable percentage of the students recorded a significant drop in their academic performance.
There is also a significant truth in the authors’ argument that increased anxiety levels have a tendency of affecting the students’ psychological and well-being (Liu, Ping, & Gao, 2019). When one goes through a state of deep anxiety, he or she becomes less social. Consequently, anxious students are hard to socialize with, hence quickly become socially isolated. Nonetheless, those people who are going through severe cases of anxiety face difficulties in paying attention. They have reduced the ability to engage in activities that require keen concentration. This is because anxious people have distorted thoughts, and have reduced the ability to control their thoughts; hence, they lack the ability to engage in critical thinking (Liu, Ping, & Gao, 2019). Besides, anxiety leads to depression, which in turn leads to the negative outcome of a person’s well-being.
The authors' arguments about the relationship between anxiety and psychological well-being are in line with Bryne's earlier findings. According to Bryne (2000), there exists a strong link between coping strategies, stress, fear, and self-esteem (Bryne, 2000). New college students are usually anxious because of the unfamiliar learning environment they enter. Moreover, college students become isolated from their families, and hence, they become homesick and subsequently experience high levels of depression.Depression is championed by too much anxiety, which in turn leads to fear, lack of self-esteem, and lack of coping strategies (Bryne, 2000). Just like the authors of this article, Bryne concludes that anxiety has adverse issues to the individual’s psychological well-being.
Logically and in accordance with the authors' findings, anxiety is characterized by low self-esteem, reduced critical thinking skills, distorted thoughts, and inability to control one's emotions. Undergraduate students are vulnerable to severe cases of anxiety due to family isolation and the strained adaptation to the new learning environment. New college students, therefore, encounter multiple psychological feelings that predispose them to poor academic performance. First, undergraduate students are always worried about themselves. Secondly, college students have deep feelings of agitation. Finally, new university students are usually restless and unsettled. A combination of these psychological factors caused by severe anxiety makes the students have difficulties in classroom concentration, leading to substantial academic failure. Also, these factors have adverse psychological effects on the students' well-being. Therefore, the authors are correct to conclude that increased levels of the learners’ anxiety have adverse impacts on the psychological and mental well-being of the students.
The authors make undisputed conclusions about their findings. Based on their explanation, the reader is made to concur with their assertion that higher levels of anxiety may result in a decreased level of students' concentration. This is true because anxiety leads to poor memory skills. Definitely, poor memory leads to academic failure. The reader is also made to believe that anxiety leads to poor socialization. This further increases the students' feelings of depression. Consequently, anxious students experience severe states of depression, leading to negative implications on the students' psychological well-being. The authors are right to conclude that anxiety is a primary mental health issue. In addition to the adverse effects on the students' academic success, anxiety also has negative implications on the students' psychological well-being. The main reason why anxiety leads to undergraduates' poor academic performance is that it affects the students' concentration ability.
However, this research has various limitations. First, the authors limited their study to university undergraduates. Although their primary focus was the effect of anxiety on academic performance in university undergraduates, they would have enhanced their research credibility through including secondary level students. In this regard, the secondary level would have acted as a control experiment for the research. In this light, they should have compared how academic performance decline as one upgrades from one educational level to another. The second weakness of the study is that it deployed one type of research methodology, which is the quantitative research method. Perhaps, the article should have included a qualitative research method of testing anxiety. Qualitative research may involve measuring the students' anxiety using observations and interviews in addition to questionnaires. It is, therefore, recommendable that future studies should test how academic performance is affected by anxiety using both quantitative and qualitative methods of research.
Despite the existing limitations to the authors’ findings, one would concur with the authors’ overall conclusion; high anxiety levels may be blamed on both the dismal academic performance and poor mental well-being of the university undergraduates. The article offers sufficient information to support the authors’ conclusion that the academic performance correlates significantly with the student’s level of anxiety. These research findings havesignificant implications for educational institutions. Teachers and other academic professionals should read this article and draw essential lessons on how they should handle university undergraduates for academic excellence. In other words, educational professionals should seek to address anxiety in their institutions to avoid a decline in their institutional performance.
References
Ali, M. S., Awan, A. S., Batool, S., & Muhammad, N. (2013). Secondary school students’ test anxiety and achievement in English. International Journal of English and Literature (IJEL). 3 (1): 131-138.
Basco, R. E., & Olea, M. T. (2013). Correlation between Anxiety Level and Academic Performance of BS Biology Freshmen Students. International Journal of Educational Research and Technology. IJERT. 4 (1): 97-103.
Bryme, B. (2000). Relationship between anxiety, fear, self-esteem, and coping strategies: Journal of Educational Journal of Education and Practice Psychology. 35 (137); 201-215.
Liu, X., Ping, S., & Gao, W. (2019). Changes in Undergraduate Students’ Psychological Well-Being as They Experience University Life. 16(16). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31405114
Shakir, M. (2014). Academic Anxiety as a Correlate of Academic Achievement: Journal of Education and Practice. 5 (10): 29-36. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.840.7365&rep=rep1&type=pdf
