Does Instructional Quality Impact Male and Female University Students Differently? Focusing on Academic Stress, Academic Satisfaction, and Mental Health Impairment

Abstract

Gender differences in university students’ well-being and mental health are prominent concerns in higher education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, male and female students have reported specific stressors that have impacted their well-being and mental health, including difficulty concentrating, concerns about academic performance, and classroom workload. All of these stressors could be mitigated by instructional quality in courses. This study sought to better understand the associations between instructional quality and mental health impairment, i.e., poor mental health and high psychological distress, among male and female undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked whether perceived instructional quality has a protective effect on students’ mental health with regard to academic stress and academic satisfaction across genders. We used longitudinal data from an ethnically diverse sample of 209 students (68% females, 82% freshmen, 50% Asian, 32% Hispanic, 13% White, 5% other) from a public university in Southern California, United States. Data were assessed during the winter and spring quarters of the academic year 2019–2020, i.e., before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Associations between instructional quality and students’ mental health impairment did not differ across genders. The findings indicated that perceived instructional quality at the beginning of the spring quarter 2020 was indirectly related to male and female students’ mental health impairment at the end of this quarter. This association was mediated by academic satisfaction. This finding points to a protective effect of instructional quality on students’ mental health. However, no effect was found concerning changes to mental health. Gender differences occurred in the link between academic stress and mental health impairment. Academic stress was a stronger predictor of mental health impairment for female students compared to male students. Furthermore, for female students alone, academic stress predicted changes in mental health impairment. We discuss practical implications for higher education. First, our study highlighted that instructional quality in higher education courses might lead to academic satisfaction and thereby help protect university students’ mental health. Second, higher education might consider providing additional support for (female) students to improve their stress management. We argue that improving and enhancing the academic environment are more important than reducing the burden of stressors.

Campus Green Spaces, Academic Achievement and Mental Health of College Students

“…Previous studies have focused on the relationship between campus green spaces and college students’ mental health [ 6 , 15 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ] and the relationship between academic achievement and mental health [ 8 , 35 , 36 ]. However, few studies have used academic achievement as a mediating variable.…”

Student academic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic literature review

“…The impact of the pandemic on the decline in student mental health is due to economic pressure, fear of exposure to the virus [70], decreased attention from parents due to inhibition of interaction and communication [52], and decline in physiological health due to lack of quality sleep [47]. From a sample of 209 students, 68% female, 82% freshmen, 50% Asian, 32% Hispanic, 13% white, and 5% other from a public university in Southern California, USA, it was found that declining mental health included concentration difficulties, academic performance concerns and increased task load [32].…”

Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic’s Distance Learning on Students and Teachers in Schools and in Higher Education – International Perspectives.

“…Multiple theoreticians argue that instructional behaviors and instructional quality indirectly affect student achievement emotions 5 through students' competence beliefs 6 and value beliefs 7 (e.g., expectancy-value theory, Eccles et al, 1983;control-value theory, Pekrun, 2006). Multiple scholars have investigated the direct impact of instructional quality on students' motivational beliefs, achievement emotions and performance in school and higher education (Fauth et al, 2014;Dorfner et al, 2018;Rubach et al, 2022). However, scholars also claim that teachers need to create learning environments with different learning opportunities for heterogeneous student needs within their classes.…”

“…Heterogeneous preconditions and needs are defined by demographic characteristics (e. g., students' socio-economic status, ethnicity/race, gender, age), functional skills (e. g., abilities, cognitive or behavioral disorders), and academic attitudes (e. g., subject-related motivation, Hamre & Pianta, 2005;Vock & Gronostaj, 2017). Previous studies have focused on the association between the extent of instructional quality and students' academic development explained by demographic and functional risk factors (Rubach et al, 2022;Fauth et al, 2014;Wenger et al, 2020). However, to our knowledge, few scholars have investigated whether the extent of instructional quality is associated with students' academic development by considering the extent to which instructional strategies meet students' need for instructional quality.…”

“…Students selected two different courses, i. e., one they perceived as their most difficult and one that they considered their most important course of all enrolled courses in spring 2020. Students explained why they selected the particular courses as the most difficult and most important (see Rubach et al, 2022). Using two different courses as reference allows examining intraindividual differences across courses, rather than using only one course for generalization.…”