Project on problems of learning

Abstract
Learning disabilities are lifelong. The way in which they are
expressed may vary over an individual’s life time, depending on the interaction between the
demands of the environment and the individual’s strengths and needs. Learning disabilities
are suggested by unexpected academic under- achievement or achievement which is
maintained only by unusually high levels of effort and support. Over expectations and
pressure from teachers and parents make the students more stressed. Studies have shown that
more people suffer from learning disabilities than previously thought, and unfortunately those
learning disabilities cause more than simply troubles in school - they can lead to
developmental issues, and possibly anxiety.

INTRODUCTION
Learning disabilities refer to a number of disorders which may affect the acquisition,
organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or non-verbal information. These
disorders affect learning in individuals who otherwise demonstrate at least average abilities
essential for thinking or reasoning. As such, learning disabilities are distinct from global
intellectual deficiency.

Learning disabilities result from impairments in one or more processes related to perceiving,
thinking, remembering or learning. These include, but are not limited to: language
processing; phonological processing; visual spatial processing; processing speed; memory
and attention; executive functions (e.g. Planning and decision making). Some people simply
have learning problems, like dyslexia, but otherwise no separate trouble functioning.

Learning problems happen because of the way the brain takes in and processes information.
As a result, some people learn differently. The trick will be figuring out how you learn best.

There are people who know how to do just that .Your parents and teachers can help you and
they can find you a learning specialist or school psychologist. These professionals can help
figure out what is a kid’s learning problem is – and come up with ideas for how to make it
better.
Learning disabilities may co-exist with various conditions including intentional, behavioural
and emotional disorder, sensory impairments or other medical conditions. For success,
individuals with learning disabilities require early identification and timely specialized
assessments and interventions involving home, school, community and workplace settings.
The interventions need to be appropriate for each individual’s learning disability subtype and,
at a minimum, include the provision of: specific skill instruction; accommodations;
compensatory strategies; and self advocacy skills.
PHYSCOLOGICAL VARIABLES
(a) STRESS
Stress is your body’s way of responding to any kind of demand or threat. When you feel
threatened, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including
adrenaline and cortical, which rouse the body for emergency action. Your heart pounds
faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and your senses become
sharper. These physical changes increase your strength and stamina, speed your reaction
time, and enhance your focus - preparing you to either fight or flee from the danger at hand.
When you sense danger – whether it’s real or imagined – body’s defences kick into high gear
in a rapid, automatic process known as the “fight- or – flight” reaction, or the stress response.
The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you. When working properly, it helps
you stay focussed, energised and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life -
giving you an extra strength to defend yourself, for example, or spurring you to slam on the
brakes to avoid an accident.
Causes of Stress
“Situations, circumstances or any stimulus that is perceived to be a threat is referred to as a
stressor, or that which causes or promotes stress”.

A fight or flight reaction may be useful in some situations, but it is highly detrimental in the
classroom. Whether anxiety stems from test taking or from an unstable home environment,
the brains of students experiencing high levels of stress look different than those who are not
— and those brains behave differently, too. In this article, we’ll take a look at the neural and
hormonal responses that underpin a student’s stress response, and make a few suggestions for
continuing to teach through the challenges it presents.

What Happens to the Brain during a Stress Response?

The body and the brain respond to stress with a complex cascade of hormones and
neurotransmitters. When a child’s senses perceive danger, their hypothalamic-pituitary-
adrenal (HPA) system releases steroid hormones (glucorcoticoids). This includes the primary
stress hormone, cortical, which has a direct effect on the heart, lungs, circulation,
metabolism, immune system and skin. The HPA also stimulates the release of catecholamine
neurotransmitters like dopamine, nor epinephrine and epinephrine (adrenaline), which
activates the amygdale, which in turn triggers a fearful response. The brain then releases
neuron peptide S, which increases alertness and feelings of anxiety.

How Stress Inhibits a Brain’s Ability to Learn

Together, the HPA system will keep a child’s stimulated and ready to run. But while this may
be good for truly life or death situations, this stress response makes learning difficult, as the
stimulated senses are not those associated with deep learning. Think about it this way: would
you be able to memorize the times tables when you were being chased by a dog? Of course
not. But while this may be obvious, the reasons why this is the case is more complex than you
might expect.

Common external causes of stress

• Major life events
• Work or school
• Relationship difficulties
• Being too busy
• Dysfunctional family

Common internal causes of stress

▪ Chronic worry
▪ Pessimism
▪ Rigid thinking, lack of flexibility
▪ Negative self talk
▪ Unrealistic expectation

(b) ANXIETY
Anxiety is very common for children and adults with learning disabilities, and unfortunately
these anxieties may make it even harder to overcome the learning issues. It's easy to see why
learning disabilities can lead to the development of anxiety. In some cases, the disability itself
may be the cause of anxiety. However, most of the time that anxiety develops as a result of
how much of a struggle it is to live with a learning disability. Social anxiety is perhaps one of
the biggest problems. Social anxiety often develops because those with trouble learning feel
out of place. All learning disabilities are different. Others have developmental problems that
contribute to trouble learning. Even though these conditions are very different, they share the
same feeling of being unable to fit in with others. Feeling like an outsider and feeling self-
conscious over your abilities can cause similar development of social anxiety.

Causes of Anxiety

Anxiety may be caused by a mental condition, a physical condition, the effects of drugs, or a
combination of these. The doctor’s initial task is to see if your anxiety is caused by a medical
condition.

Common causes of anxiety include these mental conditions

➢ Panic disorder
➢ Generalized anxiety disorder
➢ Phobic disorder
➢ Stress disorder

These common external factors can cause anxiety

o Stress at work
o Stress from school
o Stress in a personal relationship (Marriage)
o Financial stress

The ways and means to reduce anxiety in the class room

There are numerous actions teachers can take to reduce anxiety in the classroom. These
include:
1. Designating a safe place for at-risk children. Outside of mentoring, tutoring, and
coaching, children should have a designated safe adult in the classroom, whether
that’s the classroom teacher, the school psychologist or the school nurse. This person
should be a calming and empathetic presence, equipped with coping strategies
individualized to the given student.

2. Encourage self-awareness. In addition to discussing grit, it can also be useful to

develop a lesson plan that explores the physical symptoms of stress and anxiety so
that students can recognize the signs in themselves and fellow students and offer a
helping hand.

3. Teach time management. Students will have less stress in their lives when they feel
organized and like they are on top of their assignments.

4. Teach mindfulness and meditation. Today’s schooling system puts a heavy emphasis
on outcome-based learning, but just as important is staying in touch with one’s
emotions. Setting aside time to, for example, have students meditate before starting
an exam, will not only help reduce anxiety in the present, but will also teach coping
strategies for the long term.
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONS

As part of our B.Ed programme we were asked to conduct a project on problems of learning
of the students in our respective teaching practice schools. I had the opportunity to conduct
the project at Baker Memorial GHSS, Kottayam. I conducted it based on selected
psychological variables. The variables which I selected were on Stress, anxiety and fear. I
prepared a questionnaire on the basis of these variables in order to find out the different
problems faced by the students.

By the analysis of the questionnaire, it was clear that most of the students were facing stress,
anxiety and fear in learning. i.e among the samples selected 90% of students were stressed
while learning. Almost 70% of students were easily annoyed or agitated in their studies. With
regard to the trouble in sleeping or falling to sleep, 25% of students face such difficulties.
Almost 55% of students get upset by unimportant or small items. Among my samples 60% of
students were afraid of their teachers so that they do not approach the assistance of teachers.
The majority of students get pressure from their parents regarding their studies. The students
who over react to the situations were 35% . 65% of samples were scared without any reason.

Almost 85% of students were having tensions in doing activities. Among the samples 75%
students evade programmes because of anxiety. Only 40% of students were concerned about
what others think of them. On the question of their fear of exams majority of students are
having a feel of fear in taking exams. 80% of my samples get panic before and during exams.
/almost 50% of samples face a trouble of sleeping during right before a test. Only 25% of
students made mistakes with easy questions. 70% of students face a difficulty in choosing the
answers. Among the samples 55% feel that they need to cram before the test. Almost 75% of
students feel confusion in taking test. The majority of students are scared of their friend’s
opinion on their low marks. The 60% of students are afraid of being getting a bad mark even
though they are well prepared.

Majority of my samples are getting depress after doing a test regard to their poor performance
in the test and also they were anxious about getting low marks. Almost 80% of students have
a feeling that there is a huge work load. Only 40% of students face some learning disability in
using language, and are having imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write , spell or in
working out Mathematical calculation.

Among the samples 60% of students feel angry towards their parents and friends and also
70% of students experienced situations of angry outburst. Almost 65% of students get
irritated while learning. With regard to the question of difficulty in understanding the content,
only 45% faces such difficulty.

Almost 70% of students feel that teats are too frequent, this causes a great stress in their
learning. Among the samples only 25% of students are having the feeling incompetence and
75% of students have self- expectation about their studies. The students who are pressurised
with the high expectations imposed by others are 70%. Most of my selected samples doesn’t
have any health problems.
70% of samples of the study are afraid of punishments from their parents and teachers, but
they have a positive opinion regarding their reinforcement from teachers and parents. Among
the samples 55% of students need the assistance of others for their learning.

FINDINS AND SUGGESTIONS

From the survey it is very clear that most of the students have stress and anxiety in learning.
They have good academic achievements or good scoring in the exams due to this problem,
even though they have enough resources and good learning experiences.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objectives of this study

1. To study the level of stress and anxiety of students in learning.

2. To find out how exam fear affects the achievement level of students.
3. To find out the remedial measures to overcome the stress of students.

METHODOLOGY

The questionnaire used to assess the stress and anxiety among the VIII standard students of
Baker Memorial GHSS, Kottayam. The questionnaire constructed was supervised by the
teacher educator. The questionnaire contains the questions related to the causes of stress and
anxiety of students with regard to learning, to know whether the students have visible signs of
nervousness right before a test , whether their minds goes blank during a test etc....

DATA ANALYSIS

SLNO QUESTIONS YES NO

1 Are you getting stressed while learning? 90% 10%
2 Are you easily annoyed or agitated? 70% 30%
3 Do you have trouble in sleeping or falling to sleep? 25% 75%
4 Do you get upset by unimportant small issues? 55% 45%
5 Do you feel fear in your exams? 55% 45%
6 Are you afraid of your teachers? 60% 40%
7 Do you get any pressure from your parents? 95% 5%
8 Do you share your experience with others? 55% 45%
9 Do you over react in difficult situations? 35% 65%
10 Do you feel scared without any reason? 65% 35%
11 Do you feel tensed while doing something? 85% 15%
12 Do you evade programmes because of anxiety? 75% 25%
13 Are you concerned about what others think of you? 40% 60%
14 Do you get panic before and during examinations? 80% 20%
15 Do you go blank during a test? 70% 30%
16 Do you have trouble with sleep during examination days? 50% 50%
17 Do you make mistakes with easy questions? 25% 75%
18 Do you have difficulty in choosing answers? 70% 30%
19 Do you feel the need to cram before the test? 45% 55%
20 Do you feel confusion during the test? 75% 25%
21 Are you scared of friends opinion of getting low mark for you? 80% 20%
22 Are afraid of getting bad marks after preparing well for the test? 60% 40%
23 Do you feel anxious about what will happen to you if you fail? 60% 40%
24 Do you get depressed after taking a test? 90% 10%
25 Do you feel that work load is too much for your study? 80% 20%
26 Do you have any learning disability? 40% 60%
27 Do you feel angry towards your friends and parents? 60% 40%
28 Do you get angry and outburst during difficult situations? 70% 30%
29 Do you feel irritated while learning? 65% 35%
30 Do you have difficulty in learning the content that you have learned? 45% 55%
31 Do you feel the tests are done too frequently/ 70% 30%
32 Do you have the feeling of in competence/ 25% 75%
33 Do you have too much self- expectations? 75% 255
34 Are pressurised by others too expectation about your studies? 70% 30%
35 Do you face any unwillingness to go to school? 35% 65%
36 Are you interested with your learning environment? 65% 35%
37 Do you have any health problems? 70% 30%
38 Are you frightened about punishments? 70% 30%
39 Did you get reinforcement from teachers and parents? 80% 20%
40 Do you need the assistance of others for learning? 55% 45%