Stress in the Lives of College Women: “Lots to Do and Not Much Time”

Abstract

This study examined how activity and engagement qualities were related to stress. Experience sampling using e-mail pagers collected simultaneous ratings of stress and qualities of activity for 30 college women during 14 days. Surveys included narrative questions about activity types, feelings, and experience and Likert-type scales rating activity qualities and stress. A total of 2,327 surveys were analyzed using descriptive, configural frequency, and qualitative analyses. Students rated 34% of all events as stressful. Most were academic tasks (41%), overrepresented compared to overall frequency. Finding an activity to be high in complexity was most likely to lead to perceptions of increased stress for students; however, there were also social circumstances and low complexity activities in which stress was experienced.