Relationship status: its effect on the class performance

 

            The literature supports the claim that stress affects academic performance. And there are many researches which point to having a girlfriend or a boyfriend as one of the sources of stress for students. Stress is defined as the perception of discrepancy between environmental demands and individual capacities to fulfill these demands. Campbell (2006) defines stress as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demands placed on them. Stress occurs when an individual is confronted by a situation that they perceive as overwhelming and cannot cope up with. Academic stress among students have long been researched on, and researchers have identified stressors as to many assignments, competition with other students, failures, lack of pocket money, poor relationships with other students or lecturers, family or problems at home. Institutional level stressors include overcrowded lecture halls, semester system, and inadequate resources to perform academic work.

            Aside from the sources mentioned above, dating or having a romantic relationship is also seen not only as a source of stress but as a distraction. There is a lack of data regarding the influence of dating partners during adolescence. The limited literature has directed most of the attention towards the negative outcomes of adolescent romantic relationship involvement. Research on adolescent sexuality, for example, frequently derives from a problem behavior perspective, focusing on issues such as early age of onset, teen pregnancy, and more recently risk of sexually transmitted infections. The lack of prior research on the effects of romantic relationships may be due at least in part to the fact that, in comparison to parents and even peers, such relationships are very short-lived and transitory – thus lessening any potential impact.

 

            According to the research conducted by romantic climate of the school influences academic performance regardless of whether adolescents actually engage in relationship formation. The research also reveals that there are gender differences in the consequences of romantic climate, with boys generally doing better in schools with a strong romantic focus and girls generally doing worse compared to their same sex peers at schools where forming a relationship is less desirable. For boys, actually dating does not have an effect on changes in academic performance or aspirations. However, girls who form relationship have a significant decline in their overall grades compared to girls who do not date, and this effect is even stronger in schools where relationships are desired. This suggests that dating is not merely a competing time demand for all adolescents, but rather that this social pressure to value relationships particularly distracts girls from academics or even acts as a socializing agent to discourage girls from educations pursuits (Crissey, 2006).

 

References

Crissey, S R 2006, The downside of the dating scene: Gender differences in the effect of romantic climate on academic outcomes.

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