Exploring undergraduate university students’ experiences of anxiety within the South African context: A qualitative study

Abstract

Anxiety is a psycho-physiological phenomenon that is experienced by individuals within a society. Although it is commonly experienced, it remains under researched within the context of universities. South African universities host a diverse population of students that navigate various and unique issues relating to socio-economic, cultural, and educational challenges. Studies have focused on using quantitative methods to provide statistics on university students’ experiences of anxiety and their well-being and therefore, studies fall short in capturing university students’ lived experiences. This research, therefore, aimed to conduct a qualitative study to explore and understand university students’ experiences which trigger anxiety. For this qualitative study, third year Humanities students from the University of the Witwatersrand participated in individual, semi-structured interviews, which included eight open-ended questions about university students’ experiences that triggered anxiety. The research employed Thematic Analysis to analyse the data, and this was done to establish the emerging themes, which centred around experiences that triggered students’ anxiety. ‘Academic pressure,’ ‘Social (un)familiarity,’ and ‘Social well-being’ emerged as themes from analysing the data. The results of the study indicated that anxiety amongst university students is multifaceted and that students’ experiences of anxiety vary across the university context, such as anxiety experienced by students who live away from home, in a new environment without familial support, in comparison to university students who live with their families and receive familial support. The findings further confirm that anxiety is a prevalent psycho-physiological phenomenon that is commonly experienced at university.