Unveiling The Impact of Stress, Anxiety and Depression on the Academic Achievement of Adolescent Students in the Post-Covid Period

Abstract

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread closures of public institutions, particularly educational establishments, across the globe. This drastic disruption to the flow of knowledge had a detrimental effect on the overall well-being of adolescent students and severely hampered their ability to plan for the future which gradually pull them down to darkness and resulted in stress, anxiety and depression. In this backdrop, the present study is undertaken to explore whether COVID-19-related factors have any significant effect or not on the academic achievement of secondary school students. A sample of 200 secondary school students randomly selected from different government and private secondary schools. Out of the total number of respondents, half of the respondents were selected from the government, and the remaining half were selected from the private schools, consisting of male and female students in equal proportion. The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (DASS), developed by Lovibond and Lovibond in 1995, were administered to measure the level of depression, anxiety, and stress. From the analysis of the data, it is found that COVID-19-induced stress, anxiety, and depression severely and significantly affected the academic achievement of both male and female students.