Perceived stress in university students studying in a further education college

Abstract

Previous research investigating perceived stress and mental health in UK university students has used a sample population from higher education institutes (HEIs). To the authors’ knowledge, there is no literature specifically examining stress in a student population within a higher education in further education (HE-in-FE) environment. The aim of this study was to address this gap in the literature by investigating the perceived stress of HE-in-FE students. Ninety-four participants (mean age 28.7 ± SD 9.6 years) completed the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), with a mean score of 17.9 ± 7.2. The unidimensional measure was correlated with various demographical characteristics including age, gender, employment, self-directed study time, and time spent caring for others (e.g. children). Findings are comparable to previous investigations that used students at HEIs, and it can be suggested that despite the different context in which HE-in-FE students complete their higher education study and the ‘untraditional’ demographic from which they come, levels of perceived stress appear to be comparable to those of the ‘traditional’ undergraduate. Further analysis revealed significantly greater perceived stress in female students and it is recommended that future work employs a mixed-methods approach to further examine the implications of and possible reasons for this.

Keywords:

• Stress
• student
• HE-in-FE
• further education
• college