The Effect of Stress on Emotional, Behavioral and Academic Adaptation in Relation to Newly Immigrated Students in South Africa

Author: 55128920

The Course Leader: HMPYC80
Department of Psychology
University of South Africa

2014-05-28

Dear Sir/Madam

RE: The Effect of Stress on Emotional, Behavioral and Academic Adaptation in Relation to Newly Immigrated Students in South Africa
I am currently associated with Unisa where I am carrying out my honours in Psychology. The field of interest is of emotional, behavioural and academic adaptation of immigrants in Universities here in South Africa as I have personally experienced some of the struggles of adapting to a new country.
My reason for contacting you is to request that my research proposal be submitted for peer assessment as the proposed assignment is essential for my course in research methodology. Through the peer assessment I am hoping to gain a constructive opinion of my research topic and my capability to construct a research proposal for a scientific study.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely
Sean Groenewald
44 Claasen Street
Johannesburg

The Effect of Stress on Emotional, Behavioral and Academic Adaptation in Relation to Newly Immigrated Students in South Africa

The proposed study aims to measure stress related to the emotional, behavioral and academic adaptation of immigrant students who have recently moved to South Africa. After having lived in Belgium for four years and having personally experienced the stress of adapting to a new country and a new culture this subject has always ignited an interest in me and posed a question as to how most immigrants adapt in this manner to their new surroundings. Additionally and more significantly while I was studying at the University of Pretoria I encountered a few class mates who were immigrants and who also expressed being stressed (with regards to adapting) especially in the first few months of living in their new surroundings. Although the study of stress among students is not new, it is becoming more and more common for students to move away from home and study abroad whether the university abroad is more suited for the field of the student’s choice or whether a bursary was attained. Whatever the reason may be it is not uncommon for students to travel abroad for tertiary education. Through this informal observation and personal experience I have always strived to discover the effects stress may have on other immigrant students. This study will focus on newly immigrated students in South Africa and information regarding their experienced stress with regards to emotional, behavioural and academic adaptation will be gathered.
Although stress is a response that is inevitable in most of our lives, stress can be vital for certain responses to events, however if it is experienced for long periods of times it could have negative consequences as well. According to the Johns Hopkins School of Education Tennant (2003) stress can be a positive factor when one feels stimulated and able to manage a situation which then activates the body for action and also activates centers of the brain for higher thinking. Further more stress is needed to offer energy in emergency situations. Stress on the other hand becomes a negative response when one feels threatened and one no longer feels in control of a situation. This powerful feeling can initiate a powerful response destructive to both the mind and body. According to Goleman (1997) constant emotional stress can impede one’s capacity to learn. He further stresses that the working memory and long term memory can be impeded by stress. This is due to stress affecting the prefrontal lobe of the brain.
Additionally Bailey (2001) highlights the importance of dopamine (a neurotransmitter responsible for sharper thinking and focused behavior among other important functions) and how stress can affect it. Stress can result in the underproduction of dopamine which can then result in inattentiveness and unmotivated behavior.
With regards to immigrants who are already trying to deal with the stress of tertiary education they additionally may face stresses such as overcoming cultural and language barriers as well as possible discrimination. According to Sher and Vilens (2010) much of the stress that immigrants cope with have a high affinity for disorders such as depression anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder and a high risk for suicide among other behavioral disorders.
Many measures have been performed with the aim of testing the relationship between stress and immigrants (especially in the United States) and the relationship between stress and students however measures aiming to test individuals who are both students and immigrants in relation to stress are significantly less than other stress measures. One study that is of significance is the study performed by Bhandari (2012) who performed a cross sectional study assessing stress and health related quality of life of Nepalese students living in South Korea. He used the Perceived Stress Scale, Acculturative Stress Scale and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Forms questionnaire. His studies found that Nepalese students experienced a significant amount of perceived and acculturative stress which negatively affected their health related quality of life.
Through informal observation, personal experience and through research indicating the powerful effects stress may have on both students and immigrants it is fair to predict that being both a student as well as an immigrant can result in stress and the response to this stress can therefore lead to either poor or good adaptation (emotionally, behaviourally and academically) . The predictions of the study are that lower level of stress in immigrants will equate to better adaptation whereas higher levels of stress will result in poorer adaptation.
Method
Since many studies have illustrated how both quantitative and qualitative methods can mutually benefit each other I find that the use of both methods will highly benefit the current research. The sample will consist of 400 students in total. 200 newly immigrated students from the top Universities in Gauteng (the University of Johannesburg, The University of Witwatersrand, and The University of Pretoria.) will be selected. Additionally 200 South African students will be selected from the same universities. 100 boys and 100 girls will be selected randomly from each category (immigrants and South Africans). Informed consent forms will be administered to the participants who will be asked to sign it before taking part in the study. A briefing will be performed before the measure is administered to highlight the necessary steps of the measure as well as what is required of the participants. To avoid bias no information will be given to the participants regarding the expected results. All personnel involved in the study (assistants, interviewers) will sign confidentiality forms to ensure no information is leaked about any of the participants. To guarantee further confidentiality the participants names will be removed from the study and the participants will be referred to as a number code. After the measure is administered a debriefing will be performed to confirm the details of the study.
The procedure will take place over a year where 2 structured interviews will be performed. One at the beginning of the year (the start of the first semester) and the other will be performed at the end of the year (the end of the second semester). The interviews will be recorded on a recording tape. An attempt will be made to match interviewers and interviewees of the same cultural background and the same native language. Interviewers will however be assigned randomly in each culture group. Additionally academic records will be obtained from the first and second semester and compared.
The second part of the procedure will involve the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) formulated originally by Sheldon Cohen. This instrument is widely used to measure current levels of experienced stress. The PSS will be administered during the same time interval as indicated for the Structured Interviews. Questions/Queries related to experienced stress from a month leading up to the measure will be posed. Individuals will be asked how often they felt or thought a certain way and will indicate it on a 0-4 scale: 0-Never, 1-Almost Never, 2-Sometimes, 3-Often, 4-Fairly Often. The 14-item PSS will be elected for this study. Questions related to academic performance, emotional stability, whether unusual behaviours were encountered, ability to make new friends (social contacts) and adaptation to the university will be highlighted in both procedures. For participants who wish to perform the measure in their native language, the measure will be translated and then verified through back-translations by native speakers of the requested language. With permission granted the PSS items can be computer-based and if this not possible then hard copies could also be administered.
Proposed Data Analysis
In order not to violate statistical test assumptions a preliminary analyses will be conducted in order to ensure scale reliability across the immigrant groups. For the interview a multiple regression analysis can be used to analyse the results over the one year adjustment measures. To measure the internal consistency of the PSS the Cronbach’s alpha can be used where >.70 is considered the minimum internal consistency. To assess construct validity the results attained from both tests will be correlated with other stress measures to see if there is a high correlation. Furthermore with regards to the PSS a factor analysis is typically used to assure construct validity. Typically the results attained at the beginning of the year (T1) will be contrasted will those attained at the end of the year (T2) to assess the adaptation and measure test-retest reliability. For the interviews Daily Interpretive Analysis can be performed where every day after an interview is conducted a report is written summarising and interpreting the data on the tape.
Potential Issues
As the time required for the study is one year this does not guarantee that the students who performed the measure at the beginning of the year will be available at the end of the year. Furthermore an attempt will be made to find interviewers who match the cultural background of the immigrants however this cannot be assured. If some of the interviewers cannot be attained with the same cultural background then an interviewer of different background will be used which could potentially result in misinterpretation of questions posed at the participant and misinterpretation of the data by the interviewer.
Time & Costs
The time of the study as mentioned before will take place over a year including the analysis and report writing. More specifically in relation data gathering the interviews will take place over a month according to the best times available for the students. The PSS will take course over 3 days (one day allocated per university) where 3 hours to complete the measure. Depending on the cost of renting the CBT labs of the university, typically if the PSS is performed electronically, it will be more cost effective and convenient than distributing hand copies to each and every student. Should the CBT labs not be available then cost involved producing varies copies of the PSS might be requested. Furthermore participant samples regarding language, gender, marital status, dependent children among others will be recorded which could influence demographic factors that are not the primary focus of the study and will be included as control variables in the analyses.
Expected Outcomes & Benefits
A study such as this one could highly contribute to the understanding of how immigrant students respond post-immigration with regards to emotional, behavioural and academic adaption. It could also highlight the needs of newly immigrated students living in South Africa to better their educational outcome through bettering their psychological well-being as many immigrant students invest a lot of their money in tertiary education and additionally universities spend a great deal on bursaries for immigrant students as well.

Reference List
Bailey, B. A. (2000) Conscious Discipline: 7 Basic Skills for Brain Smart Classroom Management. Florida: Loving Guidance.
Bhandari, P. (2012). Stress and health related quality of life of Nepalese students studying in South Korea: A cross sectional study, Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 10, Retrieved May 25, 2014, from http://www.hqlo.com/content/10/1/26

Goleman, D. (1997). Emotional Intelligence. London: MacMillan Publishers.
Foxcroft, C., & Roodt, G. (2013). Introduction to Psychological Assessment in the South African Context. Cape Town. Oxford University Press Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd
Tennant, V. (2003). Calming Ourselves in Stressful Moments, Comprehensive Health Education Foundation, Retrieved May 28, 2014, from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Keeping%20Fit%20for%20Learning/stress.html
Sher, L., Vilens, A. (2012). Immigration & Mental Health. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Tutorial Letter 102, HMPYC80 (2014). Department of Psychology, University of South Africa, Pretoria.
Tutorial Letter 104, HMPYC80 (2014). Department of Psychology, University of South Africa, Pretoria.
Wagner, C., Kawulich, B., & Garner, M. (2012). Doing Social Research. Glasgow: McGraw-Hill.