https://doi.org/10.33698/NRF0233 -Rajesh Kumar
Abstract : Introduction: Importance of positive academic climate is increasing attention among nursing researchers, but facts on impact of academic climate on self-esteem and academic stress are rarely investigated. Objective: To find out the impact of academic climate on self-esteem and academic stress among nursing students. Methodology: Data was collected from 114 randomly selected baccalaureate nursing students in their respective classroom. A lottery method of sampling was adopted to recruit the students. Academic Climate Scale, Academic Stress Scale and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) was used to seek information on academic stress, academic climate and self-esteem. Results: The results reveal that Self-esteem was reported well among nursing students (81.58%). Environmental factors (47.63%) were reported most stressful stressors followed by personal (45.75%) and academic stressors (40.75%) by the students. Students reported better perception towards parents expectation and future employment (85.20%) followed by relationship with colleagues (75.04%) and safety-security and parking issues (73.78%). Further, findings suggested that type of family had statistical significant association with relationship with classmates (<.001), safety and security issues (p=.047) and structural aspect of organization (p=.023). Similarly, choice to be a nurse and physical health showed significant association with structural aspects (p=.041) and relationship with classmates (p=.013) among nursing students respectively. Class of the nursing students shows statistical significant association with academic stress (p=.006).
Keywords
Academic climate, self-esteem, stress, nursing students
Correspondence at
Dr. Rajesh Kumar
Assistant Professor,
College of Nursing, AIIMS, Rishikesh Uttarakhand
Introduction
Environment plays a central role in learning. Nursing is a practice profession where students have to transit from different kind of environment to learn and practice different kind of skills. Learning theories proves a significant relationship between environmental aspects and learning among leaner1. However, environment alone does not affect learning and reciprocal interactions between different factors influence learning2. A comfortable academic climate with availability of supplies and resources will help in better learning.
During the last decades, academic climate become a concern for research and educational process and a few studies reported direct influence of academic climate on academic performance among nursing students3. A productive academic climate need a combination of safety, smooth relationship to colleagues and faculty, opportunities of learning and teaching etc4. Academic climate has strong significant relationship with educational output, stress, self esteem, satisfaction and overall academic performance of nursing students. However, the impact of academic climate may also influence parents, administration, community people, teacher and whole community at large and can be visualize in the form of general comfort level of people living in respective community5.
Academic climate is a complex concept and multiple factors contribute to build up an educational climate. Literature reveals that academic climate perception can have impact on many aspects of a student like stress, self-esteem and change in overall personality. In fact, it has been reported that positive and supportive educational climate is a crucial for easy adjustment and transition to new climate6. Freeman, Edmon & Brazil (2007) reported that a positive academic climate, family support, financial services and a positive self-attitude had a significant impact on academic success. A suitable change in academic climate helps to change in academic performance, self-esteem, motivational level, easy transition to new environment and academic self-efficacy7,8. In facts, a sense of belonging in academic climate is more likely have positive impacts on self-esteem, stress, anxiety and overall improvement of wellbeing and academic output 9 . Understanding, self-esteem and academic stress identifies more about their perception about academic climate. How nursing students transit from one climate to another, understanding the element that determine their academic stress and self-esteem, contribute to literature about the different ways by which college impacts nursing students. Scarcity of finding on impact of academic climate on educational outcomes and multitude dimension, it is quite significant to explore the issues among nursing students. Therefore, the present survey was planned with the objective to find impact of academic climate on self- esteem and academic stress among nursing students.
Material & methods
A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted in the month of May 2017 by randomly selecting (simple random sampling by use of lottery method) 114 nursing students at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. Data was collected through a socio- demographic data sheet, academic stress scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and Academic Climate Scale (modified version)which was distributed among nursing students.
Socio-demographic profile sheet consisted of personal information of students i.e. age, gender, class of study, parent’s education & occupation status, type of family, family monthly income, physical health status and distance from home to Institute etc.
Profession related variables consisted additional information on variables related to profession and its nature i.e. frequency of surfing net in a day, choice of nursing as a carrier profession and attitude to nursing etc.
Academic Stress Scale was prepared and validated with the help of experts in the field of psychiatry, psychology and nursing. It is 31 items 5 point Likert rating scale namely; Not at all stressful (1) to extremely stressful (5). 31 items are categorized under 4 broad domains; personal factors (8 items), academic factors (8 items), environmental factors (8 items) and factors related to others (7 items). A higher score in domains and tool indicate higher academic stress among nursing students and vice-versa. The reliability coefficient was 0.87 for the instrument.
Academic Climate Scale is a Likert scale was developed based on the scale used in previous studies for nursing students. The climate scale (version modified by Sentinello & Berfarelli, 2002) was partially modified by changing the language of few items and used for present study. The scale consisted 40 items 5 point likert scale;strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree(5) under 6 domains; relationship with classmates/colleagues (5 items); relationship with faculty/teacher (7 items); teaching learning methods (8 items); safety, security and parking issues (8 items); structural aspects (8 items) and parents expectation and future employment (4 items). A higher score in each domain indicate better perception towards academic climate among nursing students and vice- versa. The reliability coefficient was computed and it came 0.87 for the present study.
Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES) developed to assess self-esteem in adolescents (Rosenberg M, 1965). The scale is a ten item Likert scale with items answered on a four-point scale- from Strongly Agree (SA) =3, Agree (A) =2, Disagree (D) =1 and Strongly Disagree (SD) =0. Scores range from 0 to 30. Higher score indicates high self-esteem. Tool has acceptable validity and reliability. The reproducibility co-efficient was 0.92 (Rosenberg, 1965). Administration time is approximately 5 minutes.
Ethical Consideration
Ethical permission was obtained (ECR/736/Inst/UK/2015) after due clarification of related ethical principles. All students who gave written consent and filled the questionnaire were included in the study. All scales were administered to students at their respective classroom one by one. Collected data transferred to master data sheet and analyzed by using SPSS version 23.
Method of data collection
After obtaining formal permission, students were approached in their respective class room in the presence of their respective class teacher to collect data. The students were explained about study objectives and a collective written consent was obtained from all students. A total 60 number of slips were prepared for each class and a nursing student from other class was called to pick up 30 slips for students’ selection (lottery method). This procedure was consistently followed for each class. All tools were administered at same time to collect information about socio- demographic and profession related variables, academic stress, academic climate and self-esteem status among nursing students. It took approximately 20- 25 minutes to collect the data. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 23 and analyzed by using descriptive & inferential statistics.
Results
The mean age of the students was 20.30(±1.20) years. All the students were female and unmarried (97.4%). In terms of habitat, 69.3% students belong to urban areas and living in nuclear families (76.3%). Most of the students, 95.6% reported more than 5000 rupees monthly family income. 58.8% & 40.4% students’ father and mothers’ were graduate respectively. Majority (85.1%) mothers were homemakers and fathers (53.5%) were employees in government job. Around half of (55.3%) students reported internet surfing 3-5 times in a day and reported fair attitude (65.8%) towards nursing.Table 1 represents the perception of nursing students towards academic climate. Findings represent that students more in agreement for expectation of parents and future employment followed by relationship with colleagues/classmates and safety- security and parking issues in campus. Further, it has been reported that students are least bothered about structural aspects of academic climate i.e. classrooms, hostel and hospital buildings.
Table 1. Perception of Nursing Students on Academic Climate Scale (n=114)
| Academic climate domains | Mean±SD | Mean% Score |
| Relationship with colleagues/classmates | 18.76±3.89 | 75.04 |
| Relationship with faculty/teacher | 22.33±5.34 | 63.81 |
| Teaching-learning methods | 27.66±5.01 | 69.15 |
| Safety-security and parking issues | 29.51±4.53 | 73.78 |
| Structural aspects | 21.49±6.64 | 53.73 |
| Parents expectation and employment | 17.04±2.64 | 85.20 |
In terms of academic stress, it has been reported that environmental factors (47.63) were most frequent reported stressors followed by personal (45.75) and academic factors (40.75). Self esteem of most of the students (81.42%) was reported as high and 18.42% students reported as moderate level of self esteem and no one reported low level of self esteem.
Table 3 represents the relationship of self-esteem to different aspects of academic climate and academic stress. Findings represent that self-esteem is significantly related to harmonious relation to colleagues (p<0.05), relationship with faculty/teachers (p<0.05), and negatively related to structural aspects (p<0.05) of climate. It can be interpreted that a quality relationship with classmates, teachers and poor academic structural environment had direct impact on self-esteem of nursing students. Further, academic stress shows an inverse impact of relationship with colleagues (p<0.05) and
Table 2. Level of Self-Esteem among Nursing Students (n=114)
| Self Esteem | f (%) |
| Low (<15) | 00 |
| Moderate(16-25) | 21(18.42) |
| High(>26) | 93(81.58) |
| Mean±SD | 28.25±2.84 |
positive significant attachment of teaching and learning methods (p<0.05) on self- esteem of nursing students.
Similarly, personal stress had direct impact of relationship with teachers (p<0.05), adopted teaching learning methods (p<0.01), structural aspects (p<0.05) and safety security and parking issues (p<0.05) at academic environment. Further, in connection to safety-security and parking issues, an inverse relations was observed to environmental factors (p<0.05) and parents expectation and future employment (p<0.05).
Table 3. Relationship between Academic Stress, Academic Climate and Self-esteem
(n=114)
| Variables | RC | RF | Tg-Lg | SS | SA | PE & E |
| Self-esteem | .275** | .230** | .093 | -.269** | -.326** | .000 |
| Academic stress | -.283** | .292** | .203** | .058 | .023 | .051 |
| Personal factors | .036 | .204** | .194* | .234* | .275** | .250** |
| Academic factors | -.080 | .226** | .288** | .229** | .037 | -.048 |
| Environmental factors | -.147 | -.145 | .026 | -.224** | -.173 | .230** |
| Other factors | -.327** | .179 | -.034 | .105 | .111 | -.154 |
Note: RF-relation with faculty; RC-relationship with classmates; Tg-Lg- teaching learning methods; SS-safety and security; SA-structural aspects; PE& E–parents expectations&employment
Academic stress due to other factor also showed a negative relations with relationship to colleagues (p<0.05) in the academic climate. However, a higher self esteem is reported in majority (81.58%) of nursing students (Table 2) One-way ANOVA test was applied to determine association of year of study to academic climate, academic stress and self- esteem in nursing students. Findings reveals that academic stress had direct association (p=0.06) with class of nursing students. It can be interpreted that stress level is higher in junior classes and subsequently lower in higher class nursing students. It might be due to exposure, adjustment and experience with institute climate and atmosphere(Table 4)
Likewise, one-way ANOVA test was applied to determine the association of socio-demographic variables to various domains of academic climate scale. Findings represents that students belong to joint family structure had quality relationship with classmates (p<.001), while students from nuclear family system believed to be more worried about structural (p=.023) and safety security issue (p=.047) of climate. Further, it is also reveled that students had good physical health are better able to manage relationships (p=.013) with their classmates. Likewise, students who joined nursing on their own interest were more satisfied with structural aspects (p=.041) of academic climate. Further, much issues related to safety, security and parking to be found associated with moderate self esteem among nursing students (p=.015) (Table 5)
Table 4. Association of academic stress, academic climate and Self esteem with class
(n=114)
| Class | Academic climate (Mean±SD) | Academic Stress (Mean±SD) | Self Esteem (Mean±SD) |
| BSc (N) I Year | 134.19±14.84 | 77.61±15.66 | 27.48±2.43 |
| BSc (N) II Year | 135.78±16.61 | 74.15±15.98 | 28.89±2.86 |
| BSc (N) III Year | 139.97±19.75 | 72.28±15.46 | 28.17±2.84 |
| BSc (N) IV Year | 137.37±22.54 | 64.15±09.87 | 28.59±3.16 |
| p-value | 0.669 | 0.006** | 0.259 |
**p-value significant at <0.05(one-way ANOVA)
Table 5. Association of socio-demographic variables with climate scale domains
(n=114)
| Variables | Relationship with classmates (Mean±SD) | Safety-security & parking issues (Mean±SD) | Structural aspects (Mean±SD) |
| Type of family | |||
| Joint | 21.15±3.87 | 28.00±4.45 | 18.97±7.37 |
| Nuclear | 18.02±3.60 | 29.98±4.47 | 22.28±6.23 |
| (p=.000**) | (p=.047**) | (p=.023**) | |
| Physical health | |||
| Poor | 17.00±1.41 | 28.00±5.66 | 20.00±7.07 |
| Average | 17.75±3.12 | 29.69±4.04 | 21.98±6.76 |
| Good | 19.83±4.34 | 29.37±5.00 | 21.05±6.56 |
| (p=.013**) | (p=.432) | (p=.542) | |
| Choice of nursing | |||
| Self interest | 18.06±4.24 | 31.26±4.37 | 23.77±7.62 |
| Parents/relative wishes | 18.77±3.89 | 29.05±4.21 | 20.72±5.68 |
| Other reason | 19.02±3.56 | 28.95±4.95 | 20.10±5.85 |
| (p=.654) | (p =.354) | (p=.041**) | |
| Self esteem | |||
| Moderate | 18.52±3.91 | 31.67±3.31 | 22.62±5.05 |
| High | 18.81±3.90 | 29.02±4.63 | 21.24±6.95 |
| (p=.756) | (p=.015**) | (p=.391) |
**p-value significant at <0.05(one-way ANOVA)
Discussion
Nursing is a practice profession requires precise skills and competence. To understand the development of nursing skills a resourceful climate is due required. The present survey was planned to determine the perception of baccalaureate nursing students towards academic climate and its impacts on academic stress and self esteem at a tertiary care institute, Rishikesh Uttarakhand.
The present survey findings reported that nursing students striving hard to fulfill expectation of their parents and to turn their dreams in to reality by having a dignified and respectable nursing job in future. However, it was also reflected that students are quite satisfied with their relationship to classmates and safety-security and parking issues at their academic campus. Similar findings reported in a study conducted by Siri A et al (2015) on nursing students revealed that higher academic satisfaction make the students more confident about future employment and enables to maintain good and quality satisfaction with classmates and helps to fulfill their parents expectations3. Same study also reported higher mean score on future employment relationship with classmate a followed by parents expectation among midwifery students3. Present findings shows a good level of self esteem among nursing students and these findings are in consistency with the literature (Kumar R,2016; Edward D, 2010) which reported higher self esteem among nursing students and also mentioned lower self esteem in nursing students during initial days of admission12,13.
A study conducted by Rania N et al (2012) on university degree colleges’ students reported higher mean score on future employment, parents’ expectations and relationship with classmates on academic climate scale. It can be interpreted that students are quite confident about future employment. Similarly, parents’ expectation was congruent with those of the students. Study findings disseminated by Siri A et al (2015) on nursing students also consistently reported higher mean score on future employment, parents’ expectations followed by relationship with schoolmates3.
Furthermore, present study reported strong relationship of self esteem to relationship with classmates and faculty and inverse relationship with structural aspects and safety and security issues of academic climate. A consistent finding reported for strong correlation of self esteem to academic climate and a close consistent finding reported on a study conducted on physiotherapy students for relationship to self esteem3. In same study, self esteem found to be strongly correlated with academic climate among radiologist technology students. Similarly, another study reported a strong positive correlation of self esteem to academic climate among university degree college students3.
The consistent findings also reported for strong positive relationship of self esteem to relationships to classmates3. Another study reported inconsistent findings to relationship of self esteem to method of study, structural aspects and future employment15. Changes in findings may be due to variation in methodology, setting, and use of different instrument and perception of students towards their academic climate. Present study shows a significant association of student class with academic stress. The findings are in consistency with the previous literature (Kumar R et al; 2012, Seyedfatemi N,2007) which revealed a direct impact of class to academic stress among nursing students in which senior student showed significantly less stress as compared to their junior16,17. It is clear that junior students faced more stress while dealing with adjustment to academic climate and diverse learning changes and deserve more attention to have a healthy and smooth leaning attitude.
The present study is the modest attempt to see the perception of nursing students towards their academic climate and its impacts on academic stress and self esteem. Single institute and small sample size may impede generalization of the findings in Indian setting. However, study findings recommended that institution should not merely train competent people but also develop learning atmosphere that promote learning, motivation, satisfaction among learners and development of a scenario where people can make healthy relationship to each others.This type of learning environment can nurture and nourish clinical competencies in students and professional at institution level.
Conflict of interest: None
Funding – Self financed
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