Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19 | Georgia Barbayannis et al. | ResearchPod

Transcript: Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

[[RP_SECTION:academic-stress-and-well-being|Academic Stress and Well-being]]

Sam: [steady, matter-of-fact] A survey of 843 university students, published in *Frontiers in Psychology*, found that higher academic stress goes with lower mental well-being. The association was not uniform, though. Non-binary students and second-year students showed the highest-risk profiles.

Alex: [leaning in, analytical] Before the subgroups, how strong is the main association? Is academic pressure the main driver, or one stressor among many?

Sam: [grounded, precise] The correlation between the stress scale and the well-being scale was 0.53, an inverse relationship. That is substantial for self-report measures, with roughly a quarter of the variance shared. But it's a correlation between two questionnaires, so it can't tell you that academic pressure is the dominant stressor, only that the two move together. [[RP_SECTION:sophomore-slump-and-demographics|Sophomore Slump and Demographics]]

Alex: [slower, processing] Why second-year students specifically? Is that point in the trajectory distinctive?

Sam: [thoughtful, teaching mode] The authors describe a "sophomore slump": students reach harder coursework just as the support networks of first year have thinned out. That's the proposed mechanism, and the survey doesn't test it directly. They used a MANOVA to compare groups across the outcomes, and non-binary students consistently reported the lowest well-being scores.

Alex: [probing, analytical] Did they account for the pandemic? I'd expect COVID-19 to be a serious confound for any stress measure.

Sam: [measured, clarifying] They treated it as an exacerbating factor rather than something to partial out. More than 80 percent of the sample reported increased stress because of the pandemic. Yet the inverse relationship between academic burden and well-being held. The authors read the pandemic as amplifying existing stressors, not replacing them.

Alex: [skeptical, checking] That's a fairly strong reading for a single survey. What does the design actually allow? [[RP_SECTION:study-limitations-and-methodology|Study Limitations and Methodology]]

Sam: [direct, acknowledging] It's cross-sectional, which is the first limit. Because the data is a snapshot, we can't say academic pressure causes the decline in well-being. It's equally plausible that students with lower baseline well-being find the same demands harder. The authors acknowledge they can't disentangle that reciprocity.

Alex: [thoughtful] And the subgroup differences? Non-binary students are a small slice of any sample like this.

Sam: [direct, acknowledging] That's the constraint that matters most. The sample is predominantly white and female, and it was recruited by convenience sampling, so it carries the usual WEIRD skew. The overall correlation is statistically significant, but the findings for non-binary and minority subgroups are exploratory. The authors say plainly that the study lacks the power to characterize those smaller cohorts.

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19

Georgia Barbayannis, Mahindra Bandari, Xiang Zheng, Humberto Baquerizo, Keith W. Pecor, Xue Ming

Oct 4, 2026·3:50·zotero·Original Paper

Academic StressMental Well-BeingCOVID-19 Pandemic ImpactPerception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS)Vulnerable Student GroupsPositive Mental Health

Listen

4 min

Briefing

Research Overview

This study investigates the relationship between academic stress and mental well-being among 843 full-time college students in the United States. As academic pressure is a primary stressor for this demographic, the researchers sought to identify how specific student subgroups—categorized by gender, race/ethnicity, and year of study—experience stress and how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges.

Methodology

Researchers utilized two standardized instruments: the Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS) and the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS). The PAS measures stressors related to academic expectations, workload, and self-perception, while the SWEMWBS assesses positive mental health. The survey also included demographic questions and specific inquiries regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to compare stress and well-being scores across different student groups.

Main Findings

The study confirms a significant negative correlation between academic stress and mental well-being: students reporting higher academic stress consistently demonstrated lower mental health scores. Notably, non-binary students reported the highest levels of academic stress and the lowest mental well-being, while male students reported the lowest stress and highest well-being. Second-year students emerged as a particularly vulnerable cohort, reporting higher distress than their peers in other years. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic was identified as a universal stressor, with women, non-binary students, and upperclassmen reporting the most significant increases in stress due to the pandemic.

Why It Matters

These findings highlight that academic stress is not experienced uniformly across the student body. The results suggest that universities should move away from "one-size-fits-all" mental health support. Instead, institutions should implement targeted interventions—such as time management workshops for second-year students and inclusive, specialized support for non-binary and marginalized students—to mitigate the long-term psychological impacts of academic pressure.

Key Terms and Definitions

Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS) — An 18-item survey instrument used to measure perceived academic stressors, including expectations, workload, and self-perception.
Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS) — A 7-item scale designed to assess positive mental health and psychological well-being.
Satisficing — A response strategy where survey participants provide answers to satisfy the survey requirements without carefully considering the accuracy or quality of their responses.
WEIRD Bias — A demographic skew in research samples toward individuals from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies, which can limit the generalizability of findings.

Abstract

Academic stress may be the single most dominant stress factor that affects the mental well-being of college students. Some groups of students may experience more stress than others, and the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic could further complicate the stress response. We surveyed 843 college students and evaluated whether academic stress levels affected their mental health, and if so, whether there were specific vulnerable groups by gender, race/ethnicity, year of study, and reaction to the pandemic. Using a combination of scores from the Perception of Academic Stress Scale (PAS) and the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS), we found a significant correlation between worse academic stress and poor mental well-being in all the students, who also reported an exacerbation of stress in response to the pandemic. In addition, SWEMWBS scores revealed the lowest mental health and highest academic stress in non-binary individuals, and the opposite trend was observed for both the measures in men. Furthermore, women and non-binary students reported higher academic stress than men, as indicated by PAS scores. The same pattern held as a reaction to COVID-19-related stress. PAS scores and responses to the pandemic varied by the year of study, but no obvious patterns emerged. These results indicate that academic stress in college is significantly correlated to psychological well-being in the students who responded to this survey. In addition, some groups of college students are more affected by stress than others, and additional resources and support should be provided to them.

Academic Stress and Mental Well-Being in College Students: Correlations, Affected Groups, and COVID-19: Research Paper Podcast