Finding the Gap: Student Stress and Student Engagement of First-Year Undergraduate Student from Overseas

Abstract

A high school student who has decided to continue their study to the higher level will face a change of role and demands. State University as a higher education form government has accepted students from the various region. A first-year undergraduate student has to face lots of changes of their resources in the environment to meet the demands. This situation can make undergraduate student feel stress. Stress that happened to an undergraduate student could give effect to engagement and activeness of student and affect student's achievement. The aim of this research is to find out the correlation between student stress and student engagement of first-year undergraduate student from overseas. The subject of this research is 199 first-year undergraduate from faculty cluster of State University at West Java-Indonesia, which is Medical Cluster, Agro complex, Sosiohumaniora, and Science and Technology. The research method that is used is correlational with cluster sampling. The data was obtained with Student Stress modified questionnaire from [1] with 24 items and Student Engagement modified questionnaire from [2] with 14 items. The data was processed by using a correlational test to see if there a correlation between students stress and student engagement. The result of this research represents that there is a low negative correlation between student stress and student engagement of first-year undergraduate student from another region. This research has shown that the higher level of student stress will cause the lower level of student engagement of the first-year undergraduate from another region. It means that student stress effect the student engagement. These research findings can be applied at the university to make students more adaptable and have productive behavior in studying at higher education.