Bitesize Research: How Types of Anxiety Affect Student Well-being And Performance

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone has had a great week so far! For this week’s bitesize research, I was interested in looking at a study from the Journal of Youth and Adolescence in March 2021 that looks at different types of student anxiety, and the relationship these have to psychological wellbeing and academic performance. This was a study that took place in China, and looked at 715 students. Objectives: To understand how five different anxiety symptoms (including generalised anxiety, separation anxiety, social anxiety, school anxiety, and panic disorder) develop in young people and how these impact psychological wellbeing and academic performance in young people. Summary: The key findings were:

• Students with generalised and social anxiety reported the lowest level of psychological well-being. Their life satisfaction and self-esteem levels were the lowest, while they displayed the highest levels of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation.
• Students in the group with predominant social anxiety showed the highest academic achievement.
• The group with school anxiety and congruent high anxiety displayed the lowest academic achievement.

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• What different types of support might students with different anxiety symptoms need?
• What sorts of strategies have I tried with students showing different anxiety symptoms? How effective have they been? How can I continue to refine them?

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.