Cultural Differences between United Kingdom College Students and Malaysian College Students in Social Anxiety Disorder and Academic Achievement
from
Lam Jian Yi
BSc (HONS) in Psychology
International University of Malaya-Wales
Introduction
Many students suffer from school related anxiety. Social anxiety disorder is the most common anxiety disorder (Ruscio et al., 2008). “Social phobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by marked and persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations, the individual fears that he or she will act in a way that will be humiliating or embarrassing the feared social or performance situations are avoided or else endured with intense anxiety”, defined by DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Social anxiety disorder is the fear of negative evaluation by others, which social anxiety disorder linked to social standards and role expectations (Hinton, Hofmann, & Asnaani, 2011). This study will examine the cultural differences between Western and Asian cultures, specifically, United Kingdom and Malaysia in social anxiety disorder and academic achievements among college students. Although there were past studies regarding cultural differences in social anxiety disorder and academic achievements (Baloğlu, Abbassi, & Masten, 2007; Glännström, 2009; Menezes & Fontenelle, 2006; Rizwan, Inam, & Abiodullah, 2015), but there were lack of studies comparing the UK and Malaysia cultures. As Malaysia is a multi-racial country, it is crucial to find out whether social anxiety disorder will affect the students’ academic achievements. Whereas, the were many researches based in UK studied the relationship between social anxiety disorder and academic achievements among college students, which showed a strong evidence for this study.
Literature review
There were few past researches did studies regarding cultural differences in academic achievement and social anxiety disorder. The researchers studied across two or more different cultures and found out that there were significant differences between social anxiety disorder and cultures, but most of the studies showed there was a negative correlation between social anxiety disorder and academic achievement (Baloğlu et al., 2007; Glännström, 2009; Menezes & Fontenelle, 2006; Rizwan et al., 2015). Besides recent studies, the past study by (Robinson, 1966) also indicated that there was a negative correlation between anxiety and academic performance. In this research, students from Brigham Young were the participants and they were to test the hypothesis of this study, which was the honors students with high academic ability have less anxiety than honors students with lower academic ability. But, (Djidonou, Tchégnonsi, & Adoukonou, 2016) indicated that the academic performance of the socio-phobic students were affected by social phobia in the study. This study supported that social anxiety will affect academic performance in terms of many factors, such as living environment.
Although social phobia has adverse effects on the quality of life but it was not studied much in the past and was defined by (Liebowitz, Gorman, Fyer, & Klein, 1985) as the “neglected disorder”. Social anxiety or social phobia prevents the people from doing many of the normal physical activities of daily life, enjoying pleasures and happiness of life and creates frustration in them. It has resulted in school dropouts, weakening the bonds of relationships, creates problems in marital life and hinders the ability of the person to work successfully (Al-Naggar, 2012). Quality of life, health (Katzelnick & Greist, 2001), education, employment, interests and ambitions (Schneier et al., 1994) are some of the factors commonly due to social anxiety.
Based on the similar study that compared Europeans students and Asians students on level of anxiety and academic achievement, the study by (Lam & Amorim, 2013) showed that there is no significant difference between Europeans and Asians students in anxiety. The study compared both students with high self-esteem level and low self-esteem level, it showed that there is a significant difference in anxiety, especially in the Asians group with high self-esteem. However, there were also researches indicated that social anxiety disorder brings impact to gender differences in different cultures. Findings from (Baloğlu et al., 2007) indicated that females experienced significantly higher anxiety levels compared to men, specifically, American women scored significantly higher than American men on trait anxiety. Study from (Djidonou et al., 2016), found out that female students in the study showed severe and very severe intensity of social phobia or social anxiety.
Cultural Differences Between United Kingdom and Malaysia
Cultural differences are defined with measurable variables that could explain variances in results, for example the variance in social anxiety.
United Kingdom is individualistic and Malaysia is collectivistic. The fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its member. “UK scored 89 is amongst the highest of the individualist scores” based on the Hofstede theory, where children in UK are taught from an early age to think for themselves and to find out what their unique purpose in life is and how they uniquely can contribute to the society (Hofstede, 2001). As for Malaysia, is a collectivistic society. “This is manifest in a close long-term commitment to the “member” group, be that a family extended family or extended relationship. Loyalty in a collectivist culture is paramount and overrides most other societal rules and regulations. In collectivistic societies, offence leads to shame and loss of face” (Hofstede, 2001).
Social Anxiety Disorder
Based on DSM-5, social anxiety disorder is defined as “a persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others. The individual fears that he or she will act in a way that will be embarrassing and humiliating. It is an exposure to the feared situation almost invariably provokes anxiety, which may take the form of situationally bound or situationally pre-disposed Panic Attack. The person recognizes that this fear is unreasonable and excessive” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Academic Achievement
Based on the definition of (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006), “students’ success included few aspects, which are academic achievement, engagement in educationally purposeful activities, satisfaction, acquisition of desired knowledge, skills and competencies, persistence, attainment of educational outcomes, and post-college performance.”
Purpose Statement
The aim of this study is to discover the effects of social anxiety disorder towards academic achievement in comparison of different culture college students, specifically, students from the UK and Malaysia.
Research questions
In this study, there will be three research questions, which are:
Is there a difference between United Kingdom college students and Malaysian college students in social anxiety?
Is there a difference between United Kingdom college students and Malaysian college students in academic achievement?
What is the relationship between social anxiety disorder and academic achievement among college students?
Hypotheses
The aim of this study is to see how social anxiety disorder will affect academic achievement between UK college students and Malaysian college students. Therefore, based on the research aim, it is hypothesized that:
H1: There is a significant difference between United Kingdom and Malaysian college students in social anxiety disorder.
H2: There is a significant difference between United Kingdom college students and Malaysian college students in academic achievement.
H3: There is a positive relationship between social anxiety disorder and academic achievement among college students.
Method
The research design that will be used in this study is descriptive research design, which surveys will be given to the participants. This study will be conducted through cross-sectional, where data will be collected at one point in time. Between subject design will be conducted for this study, where the participants will be randomly assigned for the interview sessions. The reason of choosing between subject design is because it is invaluable in certain situations, which gives the researcher to carry out the study with very little contamination by extraneous factors.
Population, sample and participants
Simple random sample will be used in this study. There will be 100 participants being selected randomly. The local students will be selected randomly at International University of Malaya-Wales, Kuala Lumpur. Whereas, students from UK will be selected randomly at University of Liverpool, UK. College students from Malaysia and United Kingdom will be targeted for this study.
Instrumentation
Level of anxiety
The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) will be used for this study to test the level of anxiety of the participants. It contains 14 items that is able to measure the participants’ level of anxiety and depression before their examination periods. This inventory is a Likert scale and every response may elicit a numerical score from 0-3, which higher score indicates higher level of anxiety the participant experienced. The creator of this inventory stated that if one scores less than 8, that indicates that one is lack of any mental disorder. The validity and reliability were tested and it showed that it is an appropriate screening instrument for anxiety and depression. (Bjelland, Dahl, Haug, & Neckelmann, 2002).
Academic Achievement
The subjects’ academic results for all semesters will be collected in this study. Based on the IUMW educational system, the grading levels consist of 11 levels, calculated through the percentage score from 0-100. Scores from 100- 75 meaning the subject achieved distinction, 74-64 meaning the subject achieved good, 55-50 achieved pass, 45-49 achieved conditional pass, 40-0 is failed. The cumulative grade point average (CGPA) will be calculated over all semesters and GPA is the average point value obtained for a particular semester. In this study, the CGPA of the subjects will be used to analyzed. The minimum passing CGPA for the subjects is 2.0, where the subjects are required to obtain a minimum of CGPA 2.0 in order to pass the course. Therefore, the subjects’ academic achievement will be analyzed through the CGPA obtained from the latest semester.
Procedures
The participants will be approached by the interviewers at International University of Malaya-Wales and University of Liverpool. Students will be informed that the participation in the survey is voluntary and that their responses will be anonymous. All data gained in this study will remain anonymous too. The participants also will be informed that they are allow to withdraw or quit at any point in time if they are not interested or feeling uncomfortable participating in this study or survey. Before starting the survey, the participants will be clearly informed the purpose of the survey, the brief instructions of the questionnaires that they will be filling after that and also the participants’ rights in this study.