Exploring the Relationship Between Ideas About Time and Student Stress: a Meta-Ethnography

Abstract

Student stress is a phenomenon that is still subject to ambiguity, in the identification of its sources and the most effective ways to reduce its negative effects. This study aimed to explore how ideas about time relate to educational scientific research on student stress. This paper is motivated by the suspicion that ideas about time are often (unconsciously) employed in research about student stress. A meta-ethnography was performed to identify if and how ideas about time indeed relate to student stress. The study found that ideas about time relate to student stress in many different ways. They shape the interventions that are proposed, design and methodology of the studies and the way in which results are interpreted. Due to these findings, this study recommends further research in the exact nature of the relationship between student stress and time.