A Study of Stress Factors and Their Impact on Students’ Academic Performance at University Level

The main emphasis of the study is on the academic performance and the stress management in applied science among the students of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Sindh University Campus Dadu. What is the level of stress on the academic success of the students? How does it affect their lifestyle and health? This is what the research study covers to counteract the general stress among the students. The purpose of the study is to inquire and bring light to measure and check the present stress among students of the university. While doing the research a quantitative method was applied for collecting and analyzing the data. The Questionnaires were distributed among different students for this purpose. Innumerable factors of stress were found in the results and the factors were grouped in four categories which are; -Environmental Factors, Academic Factors, and Personal Factors. In environmental factors, the stress was about the happening the fate in the future. The students were found worried about future that what would happen about their fate? How it will happen? What is about to happen? When they came into contact with the new people it raised their stress. Also the class workload was the main reason for the stress among the students regarding academic factors. When the students were experiencing the workload of the class the group of the students came under stress. The last factor was a personal factor which was mainly due to the financial problem among the students. The stress of all categories can be managed through stress management courses and doing different extracurricular activities which will help to divert the attention of the students on different occasions. This study has drawn significant conclusions and Suggests further measures for practitioners which could help other to manage stress. The limitations are also mentioned so that those who are conducting research for the similar cases can extract better results and ways of curbing stress. A survey questionnaire was designed to collect the response from students, the five-point Likert scale was used from strongly agree to strongly disagree. SPSS-21 version was used to interpret the results through different quantitative techniques like descriptive, regression, and correlation. ____________

Exploring the Successes and Challenges Faced by Subject Leaders in Providing Support to Teachers

It is acknowledged that the current leadership paradigm is encapsulated by the term transformational leadership', a concept that includes the dispersal of leadership responsibilities throughout an institution. No head teacher is in a position to be responsible for such a wide range of subject disciplines in addition to the overall management of the school. Delegation to teachers with specialist knowledge is the obvious answer to this time management issue. This sends a clear message that improvements of teaching and learning are more likely to be achieved when leadership is instructionally focused and located closest to the classroom, hence the significance of subject leadership in improving teachers' teaching practices. This case study was designed to explore three subject leaders' views and understanding of the successes and challenges they face in providing support to teachers to improve their teaching practices in an English medium private school in Karachi, Pakistan. It aimed to find out what support subject leaders provided to teachers and what strategies they used in providing support. The study also sought to understand the subject leaders' perceptions of their successes in providing support to teachers and the factors that facilitated their success. Moreover, the study aimed to find out the challenges subject leaders faced and how they dealt with them in providing support to the teachers. The subject leaders revealed their successes in supporting teachers to improve their classroom teaching practices especially in child-centered teaching strategies, setting examinations, subject content knowledge, and lesson planning. They perceived the support from the management, the head teacher and their experiences to be facilitating factors, which had made them successful in providing support to teachers. The subject leaders further revealed the challenges they face. These include time constraints, teacher turnover, observing senior teachers, and teachers' resistance to change. Lastly, they revealed the strategies they use in overcoming these challenges. The findings have significant implications for the school management, head teachers, and the subject leaders' professional development in sustaining the effectiveness of the subject leadership role.