| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 教育研究所 === 103 === Background.
Feelings of stress are prevalent among college students and are sometimes accompanied by depression, thus generating great concern in society. As the literature has noted, students frequently experience academic, financial, intimate relationship, peer relationship and parent-adolescent relationship stressors. Although many researchers have investigated possible causes and outcomes of stress, most of them focus mainly on a single stressor, rather than multiple stressors. In real life, it is rare to see only one stressor; therefore, adopting a constellation of stressors in a study is more reasonable. Moreover, very few stress studies have adopted the person-centered approach that groups people who have different stress profiles. For these reasons, one of the purposes of this study is to classify college freshmen into different profiles based on the aforementioned five stressors. Research has also noted that perceiving stress could lead to adverse outcomes. Evidence has shown that stress precedes depression. Problematic Internet Use (PIU) is also one of the consequences due to poor management of stress. Additionally, college students with different backgrounds have different levels of stress. The relationships between stress profile, depression, PIU and students’ background are worthy of investigation.
Objective.
The present study is aimed to identify the stress profiles among college freshmen. A series of analyses would help to confirm the classifications’ validity. First, concurrent and predictive depression levels were compared among the different profile groups. Second, the researcher tested whether different groups have different concurrent and predictive PIU levels. Third, gender difference was also investigated between the groups.
Sample.
Panel data was collected from the same sample every half year for 2 years (April 2012 to April 2014). Based on the purpose of the present study, the researcher only extracted two specific waves’ data: April 2012 and April 2013 to analyze. The participants were 430 freshmen (261 males and 168 females) with an average age of 19.91 years (SD = 1.61). Four main kinds of data were collected from these students, including background, stress, depression and PIU. After one year, the researcher tracked the same students, and obtained depression and PIU data from 387 students (237 males and 149 females).
Method.
Participants completed surveys including background, self-reported stress rating, Beck’s Depression Inventory II (Beck, Steer, &; Brown, 1996), and a self-developed Problematic Internet Use Scale. In the self-reported stress questions, participants rated their self-perceived academic, financial, intimate relationship, peer relationship and parent-adolescent relationship stressors. Beck’s Depression Inventory II measures negative attitude, performance difficulty, and somatic elements. The PIU scale was used to measure PIU behaviors such as impulsive use, withdrawal, tolerance and related problems.
Mplus 7 was adopted to conduct latent profile analysis (LPA) which determined latent classifications for students based on their self-reported stress from five stressors. ANOVA was performed to examine whether there are differences in depression and PIU. Chi-square test of homogeneity of proportion was conducted to find out if gender difference is related to classification.
Results.
We found that a 3-group model was the most appropriate. The three groups were labeled as carefree (N = 257, 59.77%), all-stressful (N = 98, 22.79%) and college-life disadvantageous (N = 75, 17.44%). The carefree group exhibited low amounts in all stress indicators, while the all-stressful group displayed high scores in all stressors. The college-life disadvantageous group perceived more stressors that were related to college campus experiences, such as academic, financial and peer relationship stressors, but perceived fewer stressors in parent-adolescent and intimate relationships.
Furthermore, the three groups were significantly different in the three subscales of depression. Compared with the carefree group, the all-stressful group and the college-life disadvantageous group displayed significantly higher scores in negative attitude, performance difficulty and somatic element. Such differences were also observed in the rating of depression in the next year.
Moreover, the all-stressful group had more serious PIU than the college-life disadvantageous group and the carefree group. However, PIU in the second year was not significantly different between the all-stressful group and the college-life disadvantageous group. A difference between genders was also found; the percentage of all-stressful group for males is higher than that for females, and the percentage of college-life disadvantageous group for females is higher than that for males.
Conclusion.
The contribution of this study is to utilize LPA to identify different stress profiles among college students. Although freshmen year is a transition period, there are a group of students who do not feel stressed. In addition, individuals who perceive higher stress have a higher level of depression and PIU. However, those who are low in intimate relationship stress, but high in academic stress and peer relationship stress, are still likely to have depressive moods and even having serious PIU. Understanding the stress profiles and psychological well-being of students may provide college educators and counselors insight in identifying and offering help to high-risk students.
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