Assessing University Students' Exam Stress and Individual Differences via Diurnal Cortisol Sampling

• In Event: 34.030 - Physiology of Emotion in Education: Theory, Methodology, and Insight

Abstract

Objectives. Although the main focus of higher education and related research has been on students’ learning, motivation, achievement, and academic performance (Drew, 2015), universities have focused more resources on students’ well-being as a means to help students realize their full potential in higher education (Swaner, 2007). Control Value Theory incorporates motivational, cognitive, and physiological aspects of emotional experiences related to academic achievement (Pekrun, Goetz, Frenzel, Barchfeld, & Perry, 2011). However, only a small number of educational research studies have taken advantage of physiological measures to examine or describe students’ experiences in the academic context (Spangler et al., 2002). Until recently the lack of standardized methods and affordable testing have discouraged psychological researchers from examining the physiological markers of well-being. Physiological biomarkers can provide researchers with a valuable tool for understanding the physiological manifestations of stress, arousal, and well-being (Granger et al., 2009). Specifically, diurnal cortisol patterns, including diurnal slope (wake to bedtime differences) and cortisol awakening response (wake to peak level differences) have been studied (Doane et al., 2013). We suggest combining well establish survey methodologies to examine students experience of their emotions and cortisol biomarkers to represent students’ psychological wellbeing.

Methods. Data were collected from two sections of a required engineering course in a US university. A total of seventy-one students consented to participate in the survey part of the study, of which sixty students consented to participate in the saliva collection part of the study. The mean age of the sample was 21.31 years (SD = 2.95). Data collection spanned two weeks. During Wave 1 (W1) participants consented, filled out the first online survey, and provided baseline diurnal salivary samples for two consecutive days (three samples per day). Wave 2 (W2) was the students’ mid-term examination week, and participants provided their second set of diurnal samples prior to their exam day. Sixty students of all provided valid surveys; for W1 (week before mid-term), forty-four participants completed the diurnal samples over the two waves of the study.

Results. According to paired-samples t-tests, findings show that the differences between Waves 1 and 2 for both cortisol parameters were significant; students’ diurnal cortisol slope the week of their mid-term exam was significantly flatter than the week before (t = 7.14, p < .001), and the cortisol awakening response during mid-term week was significantly smaller than the week before (t = 6.549, p < .001). Students also show individual differences in diurnal cortisol pattern change over time. Specifically, four diurnal slope (DS) patterns were found in students between W1 and W2: low-low (dysregulated), low-high (adaptive), high-high (healthy) and high-low (flattened), and these groups showed significant differences in W1 learning-related hope (p < .05), and learning-related hopelessness (p < .10).

Significance. Results support that students’ stressful experience associated with their mid-term examination could be indicated via physiological measures. Findings also show that students may experience the same academic event differently and have differential emotional and motivational experiences associated with their physiological responses, which may be supportive of and expand current theory.

Authors

• Katherine C Cheng, Arizona State University

• Jenefer E. Husman, University of Oregon

• Reinhard Pekrun, University of Essex