Academic Stress in China: Coping with High Expectations in School Environments

This piece, first published on May 30, 2014, is being republished as part of the Chicago Policy Review‘s 20th Anniversary Series. Please visit us here to learn more about the series from our Executive Editors.

Most of us can probably remember feeling stress from school in grades 7–12. Thinking about college applications, exams, friendships, and expectations for the future can create a level of worry in students that can be overwhelming.

According to a recent study in the Educational Review on educational stress, students in China feel the weight of their academics particularly acutely. The researchers examine factors associated with students’ perceived educational stress levels and find that school environment factors, being a girl, and being in an older grade in school are associated with higher levels of worry in Chinese students.

A strong culture of academic achievement famously exists in China, and Chinese students outperform much of the rest of the world on standardized exams. However, this high level of achievement comes at a price. Chinese students report some of the highest stress levels in the world according to an international survey comparing stress levels in twelfth grade students in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the United States. Extraordinarily high stress levels can lead to potentially debilitating mental health outcomes for students, including feelings of despair, an adversarial feeling of competitiveness with peers, and heightened anxiety.

With a better understanding of what factors are most associated with high stress levels, we can make policy recommendations for effective interventions. Using a survey to assess stress levels and risk factors in 1,627 students in three geographic locations, the researchers in this study asked students to assess their stress level with regard to their academic performance, parental relationships, and peer relationships. The researchers used the Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents, which asks students to rate their perceived stress levels on a standardized five-point scale.

Being female is associated with higher academic stress levels throughout the world, a finding that is consistent with the conclusions of this study.

Some research suggests that this may be because girls tend to put more personal weight on academic performance than boys and might worry more about failure. Students around the world in older grades who are thinking about entrance examinations to the next grade level or to college also experience higher academic stress levels.

Most of the factors associated with high education stress in China came from the school environment. Influential factors include a school’s rural location, students’ low level of school connectedness, perceived poor grades, and frequent emotional conflicts with peers.

First, the authors suggest that a heightened emphasis on academic achievement in rural areas of China might account for the higher levels of academic stress in those places.  Rural schools also tend to have fewer resources than urban schools, which may be a driver in students’ stress levels.  Second, feeling disconnected from the school, either from a lack of close friends or from poor relationships with teachers, is associated with higher student stress levels. Finally, frequent conflicts with peers is closely linked to students’ higher levels of academic stress.

Surprisingly, parental expectations do not have a strong correlation with academic stress level, though strong supportive relationships do have positive associations for overall student mental health.

Faced with intense competition and unrelenting self-imposed expectations, high school students worldwide need help managing their academic stress. The outcomes of this study show that a policy intervention that addresses factors in the school environment might be most effective in mitigating student stress in China. This suggests that policy makers in the United States and around the world should keep a careful eye on school environment to address academic stress in students.

 Article source: Sun, Jiandong, Michael Dunne, Xiang-yu Hou, and Ai-qiang Xu. “Educational Stress among Chinese Adolescents: Individual, Family, School and Peer Influences.” Educational Review, 2013.

Featured photo: cc/(Brian Yap (葉))