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Background: Academic anxiety revolves around scholastic work and performance and can be detrimental to students' health and overall subjective well-being. It has been found to be significantly high in adolescents, leading to consequences that prove to be detrimental to their academic performance, focus, and overall self-esteem. This phenomenon acts as a vicious cycle impacting all aspects of a student's life. Method: The current study aimed to explore mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) as a possible option to deal with academic anxiety in rural adolescent students and improve their overall subjective well-being. A total of 600 students were screened for academic anxiety and a total of 47 students were subjected to an eight-week MBI. MBI aims to bring more present-moment awareness and cultivate overall well-being and thereby works against anxiety. Mixed repeated measures ANOVA was carried out to compare pre, post, and follow-up scores. Result: The results indicated a significant effect of MBI on adolescents, suggesting a significant decline in academic anxiety from pre-to-post and an increase in mindfulness and subjective well-being from pre-to-post and follow-up assessments. Conclusion: Academic anxiety and subjective well-being improved significantly with the MBI intervention, thereby implication that MBI is a feasible option for rural adolescents with academic anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study explored the differential influences that behavioral learning strategies (i.e., cognitive-metacognitive, resource management), motivational profiles, and academic anxiety appraisals have on college-level learners in two unique learning contexts. Using multivariate analysis of variance and discriminant analysis, the study first compared these variables across learners from a community college and traditional 4-year university located within the same regional area. The study also employed a series of multiple regression analyses to investigate the influence of these variables in predicting student performance outcomes (i.e., grade point average). The results illustrate that prior research on those factors most salient within student academic success prediction models within a social cognitive framework function as expected for the university population. However, the community college learner experience deviates significantly from this standard model. For the community college learner, it is the environmental factor that appears to be the most significant to predicting student success. These findings highlight those factors most influential in academic performance outcomes among diverse student populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collegiate student athletes face psychological stressors in adjusting to campus life. This study used preexisting, nationally representative data administered by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for student athletes in 2010 to explore the conjunctive relationships among demographics, personal characteristics, social contexts, and physical condition in predicting perceived stress. The number of valid samples was 19,967 from 609 member institutions. A data mining methodology (i.e., SEARCH) was applied to model the distribution of the perceived stress. Results showed that significant stressors included the variables related to academics, physical well-being, and social contexts. Academic anxiety was the most important predictor, and its interactions with abusive coaching behavior and an inclusive team environment were shown to reduce perceived stress. Sufficient sleep was also found as a moderator in the positive relationship between perceived stress and academic anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-group learning has become commonplace in education at all levels. While it has been shown to have many benefits, previous research has demonstrated that it may not always work to the advantage of every student. One potential problem is that less-prepared students may feel anxious about participating, for fear of looking “dumb” in front of their peers. This study examines the impact of an intervention to reduce that sort of anxiety—termed social-comparison concern—in small learning groups at the university level. Over the course of an academic quarter (10 weeks), 144 students in 33 small learning groups participated in the study. Approximately one-third received an intervention designed to reduce social-comparison concern by modifying theories of intelligence and attributions for failure. One-third received a study-skills intervention, and the remaining third received no extra resources. The findings suggest that the intervention was successful and that instructors may want to infuse small-group work with discussion of the malleable nature of intelligence and of the reasons for academic success and failure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]