Relationship between Academic Stress and Thesis Completion among University Postgraduate Students

Abstract

The study examined the association between academic stress and thesis completion among the University of Cape Coast postgraduate students. The correlational research design was employed for the study. A sample of 294 postgraduate students who completed their postgraduate studies between 2018 and 2020 was purposively selected for the study. Means and standard deviations, Pearson's Moment Correlation, and independent sample t-tests were used to answer the research questions and test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that the major factors causing academic stress were that, lecturers made too many extra demands on students, poor interest in some courses, eleventh-hour preparation for examinations, worry about examination results, and monotonous teaching style by some lecturers among others. The study also found a statistically significant relationship between academic stress and thesis completion among postgraduate students. It was therefore, recommended that the University of Cape Coast’s management in collaboration with all its academic departments, should take the challenge of academic stress more seriously by ensuring that all postgraduate students seek professional counselling services available at the university to enable them to cope with the ever-increasing academic demands on them.