Option #1:

While Behaviourists and Social Cognitivists have always been vocal about the contingent affordances provided by one’s social environment through interactions with and observations of others around an individual and its importance in the individual’s leaning, seldom has their focus been how the emotional states brought about by those environments can affect learning at any age and in any field.

Dorothy Espelage, in particular, studies the learning atmosphere in school (K-12), especially interaction with peers, and how the socio-emotional evil of bullying negatively impacts the same and has long-term consequences for the bullied victim beyond the immediate school environment. Bullying, by definition, refers to aggressive behaviours perpetrated by an aggressor against the bullied victim in relationships where there is a clear, perceived power imbalance (due to factors like age, physical strength, social capital) wherein the behaviour is repeated or anticipated to be repeatable. One of the primary consequences of such continuous anticipations is social anxiety – something that students can develop in schools and then carry over during their college years.

Effects of Bullying

Given that one’s college years are often associated with mercurial changes like new socio-cultural environments, increased peer competition and comparison, higher academic pressures and associated fear of failure along with the burden of tuition fees and debt hanging over one’s head like the Sword of Damocles and self-identity exploration, the possible forces driving the anxiety of college students are very many. In fact, in higher educational environments, it is anxiety and depression rather than bullying that has been identified as a top problem as is clear from the data below:

The Epidemic of Anxiety Among Today's Students

It is perhaps due to such a huge impact of anxiety on learning that Hollywood films like “Mean Girls” (2004), “Easy A” (2010), and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (2012); and Bollywood films like “Taare Zameen Par” (2007) and “3 Idiots” (2009) have focuses on this aspect repeatedly, especially during the last decade when the topic was first gaining public attention.

Perks of Being a Wallflower

Taare Zameen Par

The consequences of anxiety post the twelfth standard is particularly pronounced given what one learns in one’s college years can often determine one’s future career prospects. Social anxiety is known to impair one’s working memory and attention (Owens et al. 2012) – both of which, as Denice Hood discusses, are important in the development of a student’s competence. Students suffering from social anxiety have consistently secured lower GPAs than their non-anxious peers (Strahan 2003), which in turn can lower their confidence and further reduce their ability to focus on their studies. Moreover, this can restrict them from applying to high-status companies participating in the job market that often require a moderately high GPA.

High prevalence of symptoms of anxiety and depression in Higher Education

Again, anxious students often fail to actively engage in classroom discussions that can otherwise motivate one to further explore a topic or give one new ideas to think about. Additionally, given that colleges are increasingly allocating grades for class participation in their grading rubric, once more, this results in a lowered GPA for the anxious students who often find it hard to speak in class (Russell and Topham 2012).

Despite facing all these academic troubles, anxious students furthermore find it difficult to even seek out the help of their professors or peers (Russell and Shaw 2009). This in turn can hinder in the networking opportunities that the college space provides, which might impact the anxious student’s future career prospects (Hjeltnes et al. 2016).

This shows that however much may the professors apply the cutting-edge cognitive learning theories in their classrooms, if students is unable to secure personal guidance through counselling sessions to help them with their anxiety, colleges will fail to give students a positive developmental experience and a holistic education.

References:

Hjeltnes, Aslak et al. 2016. “Facing the Fear of Failure: An Explorative Qualitative Study of Client Experiences in a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Program for University Students with Academic Evaluation Anxiety.” Internation Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26297629/

Owens, M., et al. 2012. “Anxiety and Depression in Academic Performance: An Exploration of the Mediating Factors of Worry and Working Memory.” School Psychology International 33(4): 433-449. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0143034311427433

Russell G, and Shaw, S. 2009. “A Study to Investigate the Prevalence of Social Anxiety in a Sample of Higher Education Students in the United Kingdom.” Journal of Mental Health 18(3): 198-206. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-06980-002

Russell, G. and Topham, P. 2012. “The Impact of Social Anxiety on Student Learning and Well-Being in Higher Education.” Journal of Mental Health 21 (4): 375-385. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22823093/

Strahan, Esther Yoder. 2003. “The Effects of Social Anxiety and Social Skills on Academic Performance.” Personality and Individual Differences 34 (2): 347-366. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222132872_The_effects_of_social_anxiety_and_social_skills_on_academic_performance