SWAPA (Student Well-Being & Academic Pressure Assessment)

Education

Academic pressure among students has been identified as an important public health problem, especially within competitive school systems. This study was conducted at RVV International School, Mumbai, Maharashtra, with the aim of developing and validating the Student Well-Being & Academic Pressure Assessment (SWAPA), a standardized tool to assess psychological distress and academic pressure among students. The potential was to construct and validate an assessment instrument for the SWAPA, explore the frequency of academic strain and psychological distress of students, and to test the means of interventions aimed at developing student health. A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 2,500 students from both State Board and CBSE-affiliated schools located in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The SWAPA was a 50-item evaluation consisting of two subscales: (a) Academic Pressure (25 items) and (b) Psychological & Emotional Wellness (25 items). Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and hypothesis testing were used for data analyses. The findings revealed that 61% of the students felt a high degree of academic pressure,23% experienced high degree of psycho-stress related to parental expectations, 9% of the students had moderate academic pressure,4% had an emotional disorder, 2% hesitated to express worry,1% showed academic burnout risk. Academic pressure was also significantly positively correlated with psychological distress (r = 0.68, p < 0.001). The SWAPA questionnaire is valid as an overall screening instrument for detecting at risk students for academic stress and emotional distress. Results emphasize the need for organizational interventions focused on the management of academic workload and emotional support institutions as a way to promote student’s general well-being.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.