HUMAN Stress RESPONSE SYSTEM
The experiences many of our underprepared students have, that come from backgrounds that include poverty or trauma, impact their psychology and the resources and supports they need to succeed. The human stress response system is very sensitive to environmental factors during childhood; children living with scarcity experience more toxic stress than middle class children, and show physical signs in the form of higher blood pressure and levels of certain stress hormones. People who experience chronic scarcity are cognitively overloaded by the volume of information needed to deal with daily tasks. A significant result of growing up in poverty is elevated chronic stress, and increased stress has demonstrable physiological and psychological effects on student performance. The impact of stress on academic performance is a rich area of research. Students may respond to a stressor as a threat (where coping skills and resources are insufficient to meet the need) or as a challenge (where individuals feel capable of responding to the stressor). Encouraging students to reappraise their stressors as challenges rather than threats results in verifiable improvements.
Poverty and Stress
The literature on affective and non-cognitive learning emphasizes the importance of considering students’ backgrounds when assessing their educational needs; affective and non-cognitive strategies support students holistically and provide tools that help them succeed in all areas of their lives. Many underprepared students come from backgrounds that include poverty or trauma, and these experiences impact their psychology and the resources and supports they need to succeed. People who experience chronic scarcity are cognitively overloaded by the volume of information needed to deal with daily tasks like paying bills, accessing services, and meeting their basic needs. For adult learners, the additional tasks required to manage schoolwork on top of other obligations create a heavy cognitive burden.
A significant result of growing up in poverty is elevated chronic stress, and increased stress has demonstrable physiological and psychological effects on student performance. The human stress response system is very sensitive to environmental factors during childhood; children living with scarcity experience more toxic stress than middle class children, and show physical signs in the form of higher blood pressure and levels of certain stress hormones. In the long term this can impede brain development, and high levels of stress make it more difficult for children to regulate their emotions and to develop executive functions like working memory, attentional control, and cognitive flexibility, all of which are necessary abilities in an academic context.
Support from adults can help mitigate the effects of stress on young children, but for students not lucky enough to have consistent support during early childhood the transition to school becomes much more difficult. Children may experience delays in literacy and numeracy, falling further behind as material becomes more complex. Struggling to keep up with their peers contributes to negative self-image and feelings about school, and this added stress may lead to behavioral problems. Responses to misbehavior result in continued elevated stress, trapping children in a vicious cycle. Many adult learners experienced these delays and subsequent struggles and are entering higher education underprepared as a result.
The impact of stress on academic performance is a rich area of research (Crum et al. 2013; Jamieson et al. 2012; Jamieson et al. 2013a; Jamieson et al. 2013b; Yeager et al. in press). The life cycle of an experience of stress begins with an environmental or contextual catalyst, which is followed by physiological response and subsequent interpretation of the stressor and psychological response to it. Changing or reducing environmental stressors is challenging and has a limited impact, so much of the recent research on stress is engaged with altering psychological responses to stress. People may respond to a stressor as a threat (where coping skills and resources are insufficient to meet the need) or as a challenge (where individuals feel capable of responding to the stressor). Encouraging students to reappraise their stressors as challenges rather than threats results in improved cardiac function and improved performance, and stress reappraisal interventions have been shown to positively impact students’ ability to persevere in the face of day-to-day stressors like public speaking, interviews, and tests.