Comparing the effects of active and traditional teaching of stress management on academic performance and the stress level in nursing students

Background: Stress as one of the prevalent diseases of the century, is the body non-responsive status to any request that can reduce the forces and affect activities and efforts. Nursing and midwifery students are experiencing multiple stressors during their study. They stress not only from theoretical training environments, that also from hospital stressors. According to negative effects of stress over academic performance of nursing students, stress management could be taught via different methods including traditional and active teaching methods. In traditional teaching, the teacher througout a one-way relationship with students is transferring knowledge and students act as knowledge recievers. In traditional teaching, the teacher is responsible for the education topic, transferring information, assessment of students’ learning status, and strengthening students’ favorable behaviors. The active learning includes methods in which students play more roles than just listening and participate in information process and practice. Objective: The aim of current study was to investigate the effect of traditional teaching compared to the active teaching of stress management on academic performance in nursing students. Methods: The study population consisted of all 3rd-semester nursing undergraduate level students from Alborz Medical University. Participant including 50 students were randomly assigned to two 25-individual groups. The first group received traditional teaching (pamphlet, explaining, lecturing) and for the second group active teaching methods (brain storming, group discussion, ask questions, role play, role-play replacement…) were performed for 8 hours. All students completed the DASS 42 questionnaire. Findings: Independent t-test results indicated significant difference between students’ level of stress before and after traditional and active teaching of stress management. Knowing that both traditional and active teachings could reduce students’ stress, though active teaching was more effective. Moreover, active teaching compared to traditional method led to a better students’ academic performance. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that compared to the traditional method the active learning reduced the students’ anxiety and depression. Teaching stress management especially via an active learning is a suitable approach to improve students’ academic performance and to decrease the negative effects of anxiety, stress, and depression. Keywords: Stress, stress management, active learning, academic performanc