Academic Major: Psychology, English Creative Writing
Advisor: Claire Starrs
Title: Subjective Stress, Self-efficacy and Affect in Fresh-man College Students
Studies have shown that college students are particularly vulnerable to stress (D’Zurilla & Sheedy, 1991). The 2019-COVID pandemic has been an exceptionally challenging situation and the impact on stu-dents has been considerable, both academically and per-sonally (Aucejo et al., 2020). The goal of the current study was to examine current stressors called daily hassles, COVID related fears and negative/positive emotions in stu-dents amidst the pandemic. I predicted that all students would be experiencing high levels of COVID related fears and stressors. Furthermore, I expected that seniors and first-generation students would have the highest level of stress-ors, even after controlling for COVID fears. The literature suggests that stress is related to higher negative affect and lower positive affect, as such I also tested these outcomes independently.