CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Stress is one of the major facets of our contemporary life, resulted from the swift changes

and modernity in human beings, so this period is calleld the age of stress. Students undergo from

many stresses like educational stress resulted from testing and exams, home works and additional

school necessities which may go beyond their abilities (Hussien and Hussien, 2006).

Stress is the process by which an individual or a person react when opened to external or

internal problems and challenges. "the organism processes numerous systems to coordinate such

adaptive responses both at systematic and cellular levels "by this, stress has direct effect on the

brain and the whole anatomy of the body as such failure to adapt to a stressful condition can

result in brain malfunction, physiological problem and also many areas of psychological

challenge's in the form of depression, anxiety, pain and burnout.

According to (Wheeler 2007), stress is physics word which refers to the amount

of force used on an object and it relates in real life as to how certain issues that carry force

applied to human life. Examples financial difficulties, health challenge issues, conflicts with

friends, all carry force or pressure on person's body -mind and spirit. Some of the pressure or

force originate from the environment but most often comes from within a person's head in the

form of worry, anxiousness, regret, discouragement and low confidence.

Therefore, stress is basically force applied to a person and may result in a strain which is

as a result of an unmanaged stress that is when a person is not able to handle a challenge or
problem encountered strain result. To some people, the effect is minimal which means they are

able to endure pressure whiles in others the effect is enormous and have an adverse effect.

Stress is explained by (Pargman 2006, 5) as “An uncertain reaction to external and

internal factors” that means a negative or positive reaction to environmental stimuli. In this

regard, it is how the totality of your body relate to changes and unfamiliar situations that present

itself in the course of time.

The COVID-19 pandemic has grown from being a public health crisis to an overarching

humanitarian crisis demanding strong social welfare measures to mitigate its adverse

consequences. The education sector in the country is one important area that has been severely

affected by the lockdown and restrictions that are required to slow down the disease transmission

(Sharma, 2020).

Since the closure of schools, parents find themselves primarily responsible for the

teaching of their children. They are forced to take over the task of home-schooling to maintain

continuity of education. This becomes an added burden, while they are already tackling issues

such as work-from-home, temporary unemployment leading to financial crisis, management of

household chores. Many parents would not have adequate time or the necessary educational

qualifications to assist their children with assignments that were previously taken care of by their

teachers. This is likely to lead to frustration and burnout amongst caregivers and disruption in the

academic activities of the children, leading to stress in both parents and children. Gender

disparity regarding allocation of household duties in such periods of confinement also needs to

be focussed upon, as women are often expected to devote more time to home-schooling children

and doing household chores affecting their academic career (Machado et al., 2019). Both

teachers and students are unprepared in terms of technology handling or accessibility issues for
online learning where most of the academic activities happen via Zoom or google meet without

any dedicated online learning platform (Jena, 2020).

Students in secondary and tertiary education settings are known to face a varied range of

ongoing normative stressors associated with their ongoing academic demands (reference).

However, in the current scenario created by the social restrictions imposed by the pandemic,

have led to escalation to severe levels of academic stress in students. There is enough evidence to

demonstrate that severe and long-standing academic-related stress has an adverse effect on

academic performance, mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. Academic-

related stress is significantly associated with reduced student academic motivation (Liu, 2015)

and academic disengagement (Liu & Lu, 2011).

This disparity of access becomes a harbinger of academic stress in students who would find

themselves unable to avail online classes or submit their assignments, thus falling behind their

peers in their curriculum. This has led to reports of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and in

severe cases suicidal attempts in children and adolescents triggered by academic stress and

apprehensions regarding future (Fegert et al., 2020).