Assessment of State Anxiety, Perceived Stress, Depression and Insomnia Among the Board Examinees of Class-XII: The Online Batch of 2020-2021

Abstract

The objectives of the concerned study were threefold; firstly, to assess the respective levels of state anxiety, perceived stress, depression and insomnia among the class 12 board examinees of session 2020 -2021; secondly, to compute and study the correlation and relationship between the mentioned variables; and lastly, to find out whether or not, the respective board examinees of CBSE, ISC and WBCHSEE educational boards differ in terms of their reported levels of state anxiety, perceived stress, depression and insomnia, respectively. Over span of one week, a total of 168 responses (CBSE board examinees= 61; ISC board examinees= 56; WBCHSE board examinees= 51) were collected using the self-report inventories, namely the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form X-1 (STAI Form X-1), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI II) and the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). The sample, thus formed by employing convenient and snowball sampling techniques, consisted of board appearing students of the state of West Bengal only. Pearson’s product moment correlation and ANOVA were used to analyze the respective data. The obtained findings were such that, the majority of the examinees, i.e., 76.80% in case of state anxiety and 83.33% for perceived stress, were found to experience high levels of the mentioned variables. About 39.88% of the board examinations were found to experience high levels of depression and 35.71% of the same reported experiencing moderate levels of the concerned variable. Subthreshold levels of insomnia were reported by 35.71% of the examinees, whereas, severe levels of insomnia disturbed 5.95% of the board appearing students. All the four variables of the present study, i.e., state anxiety, perceived stress, depression and insomnia, were found to be strongly, positively and significantly correlated with each other. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the respective examinees of CBSE, ISC and WBCHSE boards did not differ significantly from each other, in terms of their reported levels of state anxiety, perceived stress, depression and insomnia, respectively. They reportedly experience similar levels of the mentioned variables, irrespective of their board of education.