Open AccessThe Effect of Psychological Stress on Alienation Levels among Sultan Qaboos University Students
Author(s) -
Marwa N. Al Rajhi,
Riham A. Alkhalili
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
mağallaẗ al-dirāsāt al-tarbawiyyaẗ wa-al-nafsiyyaẗ/journal of educational and psychological studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2521-7046
pISSN - 2218-6506
DOI - 10.24200/jeps.vol14iss3pp381-397
Subject(s) - alienation , feeling , psychology , meaning (existential) , stress (linguistics) , clinical psychology , social psychology , developmental psychology , psychotherapist , linguistics , philosophy , political science , law
The study aimed to examine the predictive effects of educational and health stress on Sultan Qaboos University's (SQU) students' feeling of alienation. In addition, the study examined the effects of demographic variables (gender, GPA) on the levels of alienation. The study sample consisted of 482 students (69.3%) females from both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at SQU. Two questionnaires were used. The first one measured the levels of alienation based on four domains: loss of belonging, non-compliance with standards, feeling of disability, and loss of meaning. The second one measured the levels of educational and health stress. The study results revealed that the rates of alienation and stress were generally low. Moreover, statistically significant differences were found in the domain of non-compliance with standards based on gender. Also, statistically significant differences were found in all alienation domains based on GPA. The results indicated that educational stress was able to predict all domains of alienation; however, health stress was able to predict the "loss of meaning" domain only. The researchers provided a number of recommendations to deal with feelings of alienation among students.