Abstract:

Introduction:
The academic life of university students has demonstrated to be, in some cases, very stressful. As indicated in previous research, three specific factors could play a role as stressors in this regard: those related to the evaluation processes; those related to work overload, and other conditions of the teaching-learning process, such as social relations, the teaching methodology and organizational components. However, the effect of contextual factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, could have aggravated the stress of students, affecting negatively the teaching-learning process.

Objectives:
The main aim of the present study was to identify the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the stress levels of a sample of university students from the University of Alicante (Spain).

Methodology:
The design of the study was longitudinal, with two evaluation times. The sample was composed of 140 students (41 men and 99 women) from the University of Alicante (Spain) with a mean age of 22 years. Participants completed an online survey on February 2020 (Time 1, at the beginning of the second semester, before the state of alarm declaration in Spain due to the COVID-19) and on June 2020 (Time 2, at the end of the second semester when the state of alarm in Spain was just finished). The online survey was composed by a sociodemographic questionnaire elaborated ad-hoc and by the Academic Stressor Scale. This questionnaire is oriented to the evaluation of academic stressors in high education, and is formed by 54 items with a Likert type scale of 5 points (from “1=never” to “5=always”). A total score can be calculated. Furthermore, the scores in the following subscales could be also considered: methodological deficiencies of the teaching staff, student overload, beliefs about academic performance, public interventions, negative social climate, exams, lack of value of the contents, and difficulties of participation.

Results:
Differences between Time 1 and 2 were found in the total score (t(139)=-2.974, p=.003, d=.50), and in the subscales of methodological deficiencies of the teaching staff (t(139)=-3.125, p=.002, d=.53), student overload (t(139)=-2.977, p=.003, d=.50), and beliefs about academic performance (t(139)=-2.188, p=.030, d=.37). No differences were found for the rest of the subscales analyzed in the study regarding academic stress.

Discussion:
Based on the obtained results, the state of alarm situation due to COVID-19 may had have an influence on stress levels of undergraduates in the university context. Concretely, it seems that the most stressor domains influenced by the situation have been those related to the methodological characteristics of teacher, students' feelings of overload and beliefs about academic performance. The situation caused by the COVID-19 has been a challenge for teachers and students, and the implementation of online methodologies with the difficulties that in some cases entails, may had have a negative impact on teaching-learning processes, increasing stress levels of students. The information provided by this study add important information to the development of training strategies for teachers and students oriented to the knowledge about distance learning; and, at the same time, it evidences of the need to adapt academic tasks to prevent overload and negative beliefs about academic performance in students.

Keywords:

COVID-19, academic stress, university students.