Stress in psychology - Essay Example

? Psychology: Stress Results These are the results garnered from an experiment carried out to investigate and study the effects ofshort-term stress among test takers. This was done in order to establish the fact that stress levels of any kind have significant effects, which may be positive or negative on the cognitive abilities of people. The aim of the experiment was also to determine if short term heightened stress levels, in the testing environment, are sufficient to affect cognitive processes between groups and how it would reflect on test results. The study through the experiment attempts to test a working hypothesis. The working hypothesis states that people induced with additional stressors, in a testing environment, would likely show worse test results compared to people having minimal induced stress. A test administration with a fixed time limit was used to gather primary data from the test subjects who were separated into two groups. One group served as the control group while the other one was the experimental group. Time was used as the additional stress stimulant where the experimental group was exposed to cues at intervals. This was meant to heighten their sense of running out of time thus building up pressure on self. The control group did not receive any cues, and they were just required to answer as many questions within the stipulated time as possible. The data from the results was analyzed for any missing response, which was found to be none. A group statistics were calculated and independent samples tests taken so as come up with the independent group means and variances. The mean difference, standard error and 95% confidence interval of the differences in each group was computed. The above-mentioned procedure encompasses the formulation of a T–Test. A T–Test is the most commonly and best method that is used to assess the difference in means between two sets of data. With reference to this case study, the t-test is appropriate. This is because it is the only statistical method capable of dealing with small sample sizes like ? 10. This is only possible when the variables are evenly distributed within each data set, and the variation of scores between the two groups is not reliably different. The results obtained from the experiment were then analyzed through gender categorization where results data from females and males were grouped separately. The mean score of each gender categorization was computed and entered into a table for efficient comparison purposes. Race was also used to categorize the data from the test results, which was used along with the gender categories to compute frequency distribution tables, based on both gender and race. Age of the test subjects was also applied as an independent variable in the development of descriptive variables. Descriptive variables are performance levels of the participants in terms of most correct answers given between the two groups. Group and interval used this to draw up a descriptive statistics table that helped construct a simple bar graph representing mean correct questions answered. The results and data garnered, from the experimental study, indicate that there was an increased performance on the part of the Caucasians as evidenced by the frequency distribution based on race categorization. According to the frequency distribution, from gender categorization, the results illustrated better performance, by female subjects, which is a fact that is supported by the means and standard deviations computed. However, when based on descriptive statistical data the results did not prove to be statistically significant. Discussion This research was aimed at studying the impact of stressors such as test anxiety on students’ test results caused by heightened stress levels in a testing environment. The investigation was to establish if these stress levels are sufficient to affect cognitive processes between groups and if this would be reflected on the test results. The study focused on garnering evidence to prove that stress levels of any kind and duration have significant effects, whether positive or negative on cognitive abilities of people (Tuckman & Monetti, 2010). As stated in the introduction of this study, stress causes delayed, or negated learning processes. The performance of the participants based on gender can be explained by the notion that, in some circumstances, females are better equipped to perform better than their male counterparts in stressful conditions (Mitel, 2006). This can explain why females, in this research study, performed better than females. The frequency distribution based on race shows that Caucasians showed more resilience in overall performance, in the study. There is no relation to stress and race that has been established by any research that has been established. The predominance of Caucasians in performing better than other races cannot be attributed to race superiority, but on other factors like social and cultural features. The society that an individual is exposed to determine the psychological set up of an individual. The cultural and traditional background of an individual also contributes to psychological development of a person, which can influence how they mentally cope with stressful conditions (Blair, 2012). Limitations in the study can be attributed to disparities between the results garnered from this study and those established by previous research based studies. This can be attributed to a number of reasons that could have caused unevenness in the results data. This study used participants who were aged between the ages of 19 years and 21 years of age. The narrow age variance among individuals in this test could be the reason why the results from the study seemed to move away from other related research studies. A more diverse age variance and gap in the participants could maybe have standardized the findings of the study (Christenson et al, 2012). This is because people belonging to the same age set could be faced with the similar social, cultural or traditional element, which predisposes them to perform in a particular manner. Diversity of age in this test can help streamline external factors that might influence the outcome of the results. Age diversity could also help iron out discrepancies that cannot be ironed out by statistical analysis methods. The time duration under which the test was conducted could also have a contributory role (Mayer & Alexander, 2010). If the test were conducted for a much-extended period, maybe more than 60 seconds, the results could have been closer to other related research studies. An alternative research, which considers the afore mentioned improvements, can be conducted to determine if the results garnered, on that instance, could be correlated to previous findings in similar research studies. Stress is a psychological condition that affects people’s mental capacity positively in some instances, but on more occasions, it has negative impacts on the proper functioning of people’s mental capacities. People should strive to devise ways to handle and cope with stressful conditions in life for a better and healthier existence. References Tuckman, B. W., and Monetti, D. M. (2010). Educational Psychology. London: Cengage Learning. Mitel, A. V. (2006). Trends in Educational Psychology. Illustrated Edition. Nova Publishers. Blair, S. L. (2012). Economic Stress and the Family. Illustrated Edition. Emerald Group Publishing. Christenson, S. L., Reschyl, A. L. & Wylie, C. (2012). Handbook of Research on Student Engagement. Illustrated Edition. New York: Springer. Mayer, R. E. & Alexander, P. A. (2010). Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction. Illustrated Reprint Edition. Tylor & Francis. Read More