Student Life Balance : Myth or Reality?

Niharika Doble1 and M V Supriya2

Department of Management studies, Anna University,
College of engineering, Chennai -600025

1
Research Scholar, E Mail- niharika.doble@gmail.com
2
Assistant Professor, E Mail- mvsupriya@hotmail.com

Niharika Doble is a research scholar in Anna University (Chennai, India) pursuing her PhD. She
has a Master’s degree in Human Resource and Development from Madras University, India

Dr M V Supriya is the Assistant professor Department of Management studies, Anna University,

College of engineering, Chennai, India. Her expertise is in the area of HR

1
 ABSTRACT

Purpose

Student life stress, student family conflict and student life balance are issues that are scarcely

researched. This study makes a modest attempt to develop a scale for assessing the concept of

student life balance.

Design/Methodology

The study evaluated a 54 item scale for assessing the construct. The data is obtained from 612

Indian students.

Findings

The study identified fifteen key factors that students’ perceive to affect student life balance.

These factors could account for 64.48% of the observed variance. This research adds to our

understanding of the interface between academics and other roles.

Social implications

The implications for academic administrators who are concerned with the holistic growth of the

students are discussed.

Originality

This study has made a modest attempt to develop an instrument to understand sources of

imbalance in student life. The instrument is valid and reliable and can be used to determine

student life balance perceptions among students enrolled in academics.

Key words:

Student life balance, Student life stress, Work Life Balance, Factor analysis

1
INTRODUCTION

Several demands are placed during the life of a student. These demands are environmental

conditions requiring effort on the part of the student to mobilize and manage requisite resources.

When the student is unable to do so stress occurs. Stress thus refers to a condition of perceived

tension between demands and resources during student life. When the student feels that he/she

cannot meet the demands thrust on him/her, then he/she is stressed.

Stress is inevitable in the life of a student. A major anxiety that is affecting them is how to

achieve balance in life. A report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2003) observed that a

student faces important challenges in late adolescence due to increased independence and

responsibilities. For students leaving home for the first time life is difficult. It involves separation

from family and friends, adjusting to new environment, need to face new responsibilities and an

unknown future.Similar reports have been made by other researchers too.

College students, especially freshmen, are prone to more stress (D'Zurilla and Sheedy, 1991)

due to their transition from home to college life. They must adjust to (1) being away from home

for the first time, (2) maintain high academic achievement, and (3) adjust to a new social

environment (Ross et al, 1999). Besides these, a student also encounters a pressure to earn good

grades (Hirsch and Ellis, 1996). Excessive homework, unclear assignments, uncomfortable

classrooms (Frazer and Kohn, 1986), assessment deadlines (Misra and Mckean, 2000), relations

with faculty members, time pressures (Sgan-Cohen and Lowental, 1988), financial pressures,

relationship with peers, opposite sex, family and friends (Wright, 1967), new eating and

sleeping habits, loneliness and bleak future career prospects are other stressors identified by

researchers.

2
Some students experience difficulty in adjusting to college social network and are stressed due to

poor inter personal relationships with their peers and teachers (Hughes et al, 2006). Also students

come from a homogeneous cultural background into a heterogeneous and diverse population

with diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. This causes them uneasiness and stress (Zeidner, 1992).

Excessive stress often leads to depression, ill health and mental break down. A significant

number of students threaten or attempt suicide (Bernard and Bernard 1980). Students also

develop alcohol or drug problems to overcome stress (Johnson 1986). In 1995, Pace and Trapp

reported that almost one fourth of college students experienced depression. Furr et al (2001) also

reported that half of the college students admitted as being depressed. Bernard and Bernard

(1982) found that academic pressures accounted for 7% of suicide attempts amongst college

students, while social problems accounted for 75%. Oswalt and Silberg (1995) found that 42%

experienced a traumatic experience while in college.

An issue associated with study load related stress is the fear of failure. Schafer (1996) describes

fear of failure as natural and capable of motivating an individual to prepare and perform well.

However, at times it can become so extreme that it can create unnecessary emotional and

physical distress, a feeling that he/she cannot cope with the perceived situation. Students too

experience similar fear of failure with study load related stress. Majority of the students are

resilient and therefore are able to tackle these stresses. They are therefore able to accomplish

their academic goals.

Gender differences surface quite naturally in the area of stress. Depression is considered to be a

greater problem among women than men. The American Psychiatric Association (2000) reported

that women experience depression twice as often as men. These differences arise perhaps on

account of increased family pressures experienced by women as against men. In Indian society

3
higher education by and large is still a priority for boys than girls. The trend is changing in the

recent times. Yet, even today stress related to education in India is more predominant in boys

than in girls. The society still believes that boys have to get a degree and earn a living and girls

get married and run a family life. Male students experience higher levels of role stagnation than

female students (Agrawal and Chahar, 2007).

The Student Living Report estimated that 39% of students work part-time and 3% work full-time

(Robotham, 2008). A combination of paid work and academic study leads to stress amongst

students since they have to balance the time. About 40% of the students working during term-

time mentioned that employment did not adversely affect their studies (Robotham, 2008). Never

the less research reiterates that student life balance is an issue when the student has to manage

academics, family and work life.

Although Indian researchers have long been concerned with stress in organizations (Kapur,

1969; Pestonjee and Pareek, 1997; Pattanayak, 2003; Aziz, 2004) and among teachers (Joshi and

Singhvi, 1997), stress amongst students has not been examined in detail. In addition, insufficient

colleges, poor infrastructure and faculty, adds on to the stress in the students. On account of

these push factors; those who are more academically inclined often opt to pursue higher

education outside India. This has resulted in brain drain (Shah, 2001).

Interestingly, there are instances of some of the premier universities across the globe organizing

educational fairs (Nasscom Newsline, 2006). The attractive terms and conditions often act as pull

factors in wooing prospective Indian students. This is evidenced by the rising trend of students

migrating to countries like the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark,

and France etc. In the recent past other destinations like Russia, Poland, China, and Bulgaria etc.

are being popularized by educational representatives of the country. In this context, there is a

4
need to understand the peculiarities in the stress experienced by the students in a cross cultural

context.

The foregoing research reports evidence that there are several factors that cause student life

stress. It can be concluded that student life stress is a concept fairly addressed by researchers.

However, research on the impact of student life stress on student life balance is perhaps not

attempted as yet. It is true that some aspects may have been touched upon by researchers while

studying work life balance. However, in these cases, the context is the organization. The

primary concern is the organizational stress. Other secondary concerns are the personal and

student life stresses. The latter stress may apply only to a miniscule of respondents who are

pursuing an academic course at the time of survey. It may not reflect the complete picture of

student life stress and more so the related concepts of student life balance. Therefore, the first

step in this direction would be to understand the existence of the concept of student life balance.

In short is such a concept a myth or a reality? Does the concept apply in the context where the

individual pursues an academic course but is not employed and does not have other roles as

spouse or parent. This is a pertinent question in the Indian context and perhaps in other

developing countries too with similar cultural influences. Considering these observations this

study attempts to understand students’ perception of student life balance. This study is perhaps a

first attempt to understand this construct in its entirety.

METHODOLGY

Sample

A total of 612 college students undergoing professional education in Chennai, constitute the

sample for the study. Being an exploratory study, convenience sampling was resorted to. 365

5
males (~ 60%) and 247 (~ 40%) females participated in the survey. 523 of them were pursuing

UG, 65 PG and 24 PhD degrees. While 503 of the students were from an urban background, 109

were from rural background.

Instrument

Development of measures falls into three stages namely item development, scale development

and scale evaluation (Schwab, 1980). In item generation content validity is a minimum

psychometric requirement (Schriesheim et al, 1993). It is ensured through development of items

that the relevant to the construct both deductive and inductive approach may be used in item

development (Stone, 1978).

In this case the review of literature reveled a lack of research on the concept of student life

balance; therefore we did not have a clear theoretical paper to rely on. However, several of the

studies reviewed in this paper highlight the presence of stress among students. The common

stressors identified are increased academic workload, separation from friends and families, less

hand holding by parents and teachers, exposure to new environment, social pressures,

distractions, challenges posed by new responsibility, unknown future, bad habits, health, inability

to adjust and lack of social support. Stressors often affect the quality of life and quite naturally

lead to student life imbalance. Similarly observations have been reported by researchers who

worked on work life balance (Fleetwood, 2007; Aryee et al, 2005).This in short is the theoretical

basics for the development of the items.

Subjective method for item development (Carey, 1994) was also used to make

the list of items comprehensive. Initially sixty students from a reputed professional college were

put through a brain storming session. All of them concurred that they did not have student life

balance. They were then asked to identify possible sources of student-life imbalance. The use of

6
students is appropriate as they are the subject matter experts aware of the conceptual definition

of the construct that is used as guide for the development of items (Schwab,1980).Based on the

outcome of this session a preliminary questionnaire was designed to collect data on issues that

could be affecting student life balance. Each item was rated on a 5 point scale Likert type scale.

A score of 1 indicated that it had the least contribution to the student life imbalance (as perceived

by them), while a score of 5 indicated a high contribution.

This questionnaire was subject to pilot testing to assess content adequacy (Schriesheim et al,

1993).Based on the results of the pilot testing, a final version of the questionnaire was prepared.

In all there were 56 items in the final questionnaire (Cronbach Alpha = 0.89). This indicates a

high level of reliability. Allen and Yen (1979) suggest the use of a large number of initial items.

This study largely used the suggestion of Hinkin (1995) on “Best practices” in item

development.

All statistical analysis, including KMO and Bartlett's tests and Factor Analysis were performed

with SPSS 15.0 ver. These analysis can help to identify the factors that are primarily responsible

(as perceived by the student) for causing student life imbalance. The results of the first two tests

support the use of a factor analysis to identify factors that are primarily responsible for causing

student life imbalance. Factor analysis was carried out using principal component analysis

method with an orthogonal varimax rotation. The main uses of factor analysis are to reduce the

number of variables and to detect relationships between variables. Principal component analysis

technique is used to combine two or more variables by a single factor. The extraction of principal

components amounts to a variance maximizing (varimax) rotation of the original variable space.

Varimax rotation reduced the moderate factor loadings and increased those loadings which were

already high, providing clear factor loadings.

7
 This study used the exploratory factor analysis as there was no prior knowledge of

the number of factors that are necessary to explain the interrelationship among the set of items

(Gorsuch,1983; Pedhazar and Schmalkin,1991;Tabachnick and Fidall,2001) and the items that

could be grouped under a particular factor

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Table 1 shows the results of the two tests which indicate the suitability of the data for factor

analysis. Bartlett's test of sphericity indicates whether the correlation matrix is an identity matrix,

which would in turn mean that the variables in the table are unrelated. Very small values (< 0.05)

indicate that there are probably significant relationships among the variables. In our case a Chi-

square value of 7410.22 with a p = 0.000, indicates that there are significant relationships among

the variables. A correlation analysis indicated that many of the variables (95 %) correlated with

each other (correlation coefficient > 0.5).

Table 1 Results of KMO and Bartlett's Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling

.808
Adequacy.
Bartlett's Test of Approx. Chi-Square 7410.220
Sphericity Df 1326
Sig. .000

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy is a statistic which indicates the

proportion of variance in the variables (ie a common variance which might be caused by

underlying factors). The value should be generally high (closer to 1) and a value above 0.5

generally indicates that a factor analysis may be useful with the data. In this particular case it is

8
0.808, indicating that performing a factor analysis will be useful. Table 2 reports the loadings for

each variable on the components or factors after rotation for the entire data set.

9
Table 2 Items related to Dimensions of student life balance Attribute (Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis, Rotation Method: Varimax
ith Kaiser Normalization).

Personal Hobbies Family Teaching&

habits College &Curricular Career Distraction & Evaluation Growing Desires & Hostel Teacher Special House Marriag
&Worries environment activities Expectations factors Society methods Up Apprehensions Life Support Coping class chores e
Sports program on tv 0.750
Quarrels 0.362
Wedding 0.375
Uninteresting Courses 0.553
Death 0.462
Responsibility 0.517
Residence 0.590
Marriage 0.663
Distraction by friends 0.704
Bad influence 0.532
Sickness 0.490
Fear 0.445
Hostel 0.721
Demands of Hostel life 0.716
Commuting 0.788
Missing meals 0.508
Desire to sleep more 0.662
Future career 0.601
Pocket money 0.340
Drugs 0.474
Alcohol 0.769
Smoking 0.826
Opp sex 0.688
Movies 0.572
Mobile Phone 0.840
SMS 0.828
Teachers 0.507

10
Coaching Classes 0.560
College Timings 0.784
College Rules 0.832
Assignments 0.668
Attendance 0.633
Dress code 0.576
Special class 0.773
Punishment 0.505
Favoritism 0.686
Teaching 0.800
Evaluation 0.528
Vague 0.542
Societal 0.484
Misunderstanding 0.598
Lack 0.660
House chores 0.616
Extra curricular 0.804
Core curricular 0.645
Sports 0.718
Hobbies 0.606
Get together 0.566
Sibling rivalry 0.598
Part time 0.462
Salary expecttion 0.801
job posting 0.767
pressures from family 0.613
Job expectations 0.731

Each number in the Table represents the partial correlation between the item and the rotated factor. These correlations can help us to interpret the

factors and group them into various categories. This is done by looking for a common thread among the variables that have large loadings for a

11
particular factor. About 64.48% of the variance is accounted for by 15 components or factors. Here all the thirteen Eigen values are greater than 1

(see Table 3).

12
 Table 3 Eigen values and Variance for the factors

Eigen Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Facto
values 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
% of
Variance 16.512 9.912 5.386 4.311 3.832 3.457 3.050 2.860 2.535 2.433 2.281 2.142 1.978 1.919 1.87
Cumulative
% 16.512 26.424 31.810 36.121 39.953 43.409 46.460 49.320 51.855 54.288 56.569 58.710 60.689 62.607 64.48

Items with loadings less than .32 were deleted. Tabachnick and Fidel (2001) cite
0.32 as a rule of thumb for minimum loading of an item which equates to approximately 10%
overlapping variance with other items in that factor. The analysis yielded 15 factors

These fifteen factors reported here concern with personal habits & worries, college

environment, hobbies & curricular activities, career expectations, distraction factors, family and

society, teaching & evaluation methods, growing up, desires & apprehensions, hostel life, teacher

support, coping, special class, house chores and marriage. The possible stressors grouped under

personal habits & worries are sickness, commuting, pocket money, alcohol, smoking, distraction

from opposite sex, fear of punishment (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.8, n=7). This is the first component

in the factor analysis and it accounts for 16.5% of the variance in the data. The second

component or factor includes variables pertaining to college environment such as college

Timings, college Rules, assignments, attendance and dress code (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.78, n=5).

It accounts for 9.9% of the variance in the data. The third component includes variables

pertaining to Hobbies & curricular activities such as extracurricular activities, core-curricular

contents, sports, hobbies and get together (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.81, n=5). It accounts for 5.3%

of the variance in the data. The fourth factor or component includes variable pertaining to career

expectations such as salary expectation, job posting, and Job expectations (Cronbach's Alpha =

0.77, n=3). It accounts for 4.3% of the variance in the data. The fifth factor or component

includes variable pertaining to distraction factors such as attending wedding, movies, mobile

13
phone and SMS (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.71, n=4). It accounts for 3.8% of the variance in the data.

The sixth factor includes variables pertaining to family and society such as death, societal

pressures, misunderstanding with peers and pressures from family (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.60,

n=4). It accounts for 3.5% of the variance in the data. The seventh factor includes variables

pertaining to teaching and evaluation methods such as favoritism by teachers, teaching methods

and evaluation (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.65, n=3). It accounts for 3.0% of the variance in the data.

The eighth factor includes variables pertaining to growing up such as responsibility being eldest

child, change of residence, distraction by friends and bad influence (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.60,

n=4). It accounts for 2.86% of the variance in the data. The ninth factor includes variables

pertaining to desires & apprehensions such as missing meals, desire to sleep more, future career

prospects and drugs (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.60, n=4). It accounts for 2.5% of the variance in the

data. The tenth factor includes variables pertaining to hostel life such as fear, living in hostel and

demands of Hostel life (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.60, n=3). It accounts for 2.4% of the variance in

the data. The eleventh factor includes variables pertaining to teacher support such as course

content, Teachers and coaching classes (Cronbach's Alpha = 0.60, n=3). It accounts for 2.3% of

the variance in the data. The twelfth factor includes variables pertaining to coping such as

Watching sports program on tv, quarrels , sibling rivalry and part time jobs (Cronbach's Alpha =

0.60, n=4). It accounts for 2.14% of the variance in the data. The thirteenth factor, fourteenth and

fifteenth factors have only one item in them namely special class, house chores and marriage

respectively.

The factor analysis throws light on two distinct groups of the fifteen components identified; eight

can be addressed by the student, him or herself. They are personal habits & worries, hobbies &

curricular activities, career expectations, marriage, house chores, distraction factors, desires &

14
apprehensions and coping. While components College environment, Family and society,

teaching & evaluation methods, hostel life, teacher support, special class and growing up are

influenced largely by the external environment and people. There is very little that the students

can do perhaps on his /her own here. In the former cases the student can take proactive measures

to bring about a life balance whereas in the case of the latter the role of support groups in

bringing about balance is relatively more pronounced.

In the current context of internationalization of education, it is quite common to see students

traveling from one part of the world to another for higher studies. In the process they encounter

culture shock, discrimination, language difficulties, diversity in experiences, a changing sense of

identity, financial problems, difference in food habits to name a few. These stressors often lead

to feelings of coping inability.

The average Indian student is also younger than his counterpart elsewhere in the world. Indian

parents take on the entire financial burden of educating their children. Students seldom need to

take up part-time job while studying unlike in most other parts of the world. Moreover, but for a

small portion of the student population, most students are unmarried. Therefore spousal and

parenting pressures are missing. Even for the few who are married parental or extended families’

support is generally available. Yet, it is surprising that student life balance is a myth even in such

circumstances.

The results of this study are quite interesting. It points to the need for positive initiatives by

educational administrators to facilitate better student life balance. Stress management strategies

mainly focus on coping strategies. Students must be exposed to coping strategies. Coping refers

to how an individual is able to eliminate or reduce stressors in their environment, alter their

appraisal of the potential harmfulness, or minimize the extent of strain that they will experience

15
as a result of these stressors (O’Driscoll and Cooper, 1996). Indian educational administrators

would do well to adopt some of the techniques adopted by their foreign counterparts.

Many countries in Europe the USA and Australia have realized that students encounter stress and

so they have university counseling services. This can be made use of by all students discretely.

Of course norms of privacy and avoidance of personal disclosure, lack of familiarity with the

concept of counseling are a few problems which have made counseling service not popular

(Bradley, 2000). Although such facilities are available in most of the developed countries they

are not used because of reasons such as adverse students’ view on counseling, their inability to

recognize the gravity of their problem and the need to seek counseling help (Fallon and Barbara,

2005). Lack of knowledge about the existence of the service, its location, and the mechanics of

obtaining an appointment, are other reasons cited (Bradley et al, 1995). Counseling must be

easily accessible to the students. They must be encouraged to ask for help at the right time.

Assurance that they would be understood and helped must also be given. Counseling service

must be popularized amongst Indian students too. Teachers can take proactive leads to mentor

these students. As there is a direct contact between the two, teachers have an instrumental role in

facilitating student life balance.

The teachers should be trained to identify students who may be encountering imbalance. They

may either counsel themselves or direct them to professional counselors. The teachers must

discuss with educational administrators about issues that cause student life imbalance and try to

find solutions to eliminate them. Determining student’s work loads must be the joint

responsibility of the students, teachers and the administrators. Similar views have been suggested

by Clift and Thomas (1973). They suggest that there is a need to consider student work capacity

16
when designing and assessing course work, as well as a need to give students assistance in

developing effective methods of study. Miller (1970) suggested that it is the allocation of time to

academic and extra-curricular activities and the effective use of the time set aside for academic

activities which are important, rather than the extra-curricular activities themselves. Flexibility in

the design of curriculum and delivery of course must be encouraged. Use of technology to record

and replay lectures and class room discussions must be enhanced. Students must have access to

these at their own convenience and pace. This will decrease a lot of stress that results from their

inability to be present at scheduled lectures due to pressures from the family and work roles.

Familial support must be strengthened. This will act as a cushion when the student feels he/she is

unable to manage his/her dual roles. Student must realize that extended emotional distress can

often contribute to several physiological problems. Emotions can affect an individual’s social,

interpersonal and inter-group interactions. Research has established that stress can affect not only

the academic performance but also the personal life of the student. So it would be beneficial to

explore potential areas of stress and assess the degree to which stressors are present in the lives

of the students (Jogaratnam and Buchanan, 2004).

The power of introspection is underscored here. Students must be able to recognize the onset of

crisis and adopt appropriate coping styles. Stress coping strategies include talking to relatives,

friends and peers, keeping their thoughts and emotions under control or pursuing other activities

which includes walking, talking to the tutor, crying, praying etc (Evans and Kelly, 2004). The

study done on Japanese students (Jou and Fukada,1994) indicated that the negative influence of

stress on health was buffered by social support they get. Students must spend quality time on

developing good interpersonal relationships with family, peers and teachers.

17
In the test site in India, parents should realize that their children should seek a course and career

according to his or her liking and aptitude and not select them based on social or family

pressures. Professional education, namely engineering, medicine or management degree, is an

important component in the overall education system in India. Obtaining such a professional

degree is regarded as very prestigious amongst the middle classes. It is supposed to act as a

vehicle for upward mobility in a status conscious society (Kapur, 1969), but students are stressed

in this case. These pressures are very severe in India. It often influences a majority of the parents

to force their children to opt for professional education without considering the reality and

capabilities of their children. These pressures lead to physical and mental breakdown and burn

outs. Hence, there could be guidance to parents as well on how to approach such social pressures

and manage them rightly thus ensuring their children’s mental well being.

Moreover, many of these graduates do not get jobs that match their own or parental expectations.

Career guidance to the students can be useful in making selection appropriate to their needs. The

students may feel confident when they meet an experienced person who can help them in their

future career planning. The college administrators should ensure that the quality of professional

education meets the standards that the market demands. Education as a way to raise socio-

economic status and enhance family prestige should not be overemphasized, definitely not at the

cost of developing unique qualities in the student. Qualities that are based on his/her values,

personality and latent potential should be given more importance (Agrawal and Chahar, 2007).

Student retention programs should also be encouraged by the management (Koeske and Koeske,

1991).

18
A balanced student lifestyle can be achieved with time management, healthy eating, being active,

setting goals and priorities. The goals have to be realistic and achievable. They have to be ranked

according to priorities based on social, family and work commitments. It is important to realize

that not all the stress that students may experience is negative. Stress can have a positive effect in

enabling individuals to respond effectively in an emergency (Anderson and Pulich, 2001)

An individual who has appropriate internal resources and abilities to master them responds more

successfully to external stressors than one who lack these qualities (Bandura, 1989). When

people feel good about themselves, they cope with stress better. Social support, family, parents

and teachers can help in building up the self esteem of students at an early age, so that they are

mentally strong to face problems (Bovier et al, 2004). Social support can have a direct effect on

mental health and promote internal resources and coping abilities. It can also have a buffering or

a moderating effect thereby reducing the negative impact of external stressors on mental health

(Bovier et al, 2004). It is also observed that students can face the challenges of transitions from

home to college and other life stress with resilience, and confidence boosted by family support

(Hickman et al, 2000).

The power of positive thinking, building self confidence, ability to face problems and succeeding

after a failure are attributes which needs to be inculcated early in life. This will help them to cope

with the stresses they face in higher education as well as familial and work related problems they

face in later part of their lives.

CONCLUSIONS

Considering that students experience a considerable extent of imbalance ; it would be worthwhile

to develop an instrument to understand sources of imbalance. This study has made a modest
attempt in this direction. The instrument is valid and reliable and can be used to determine

19
student life balance perceptions among students enrolled in academics. This research adds to our
understanding of the interface between academics and other roles. These have implications for
educationists who are concerned with the holistic growth of the students.

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