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What is the connection between intensive studying and an increased number of teen suicides?
(3460 words)
Introduction
Suicides among youth especially teen suicides are one of the global issues that are
discussed worldwide according to recent news. There can be many factors that enforce a
teenager to commit suicide from bad relationships up to severe depression. Unsurprisingly,
during adolescence there can be difficulties that increase the risk of suicide. For instance,
Kazakhstan ranked third in the world according to the number of teen and kids suicides(United
Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 2013). Furthermore, suicide is a
third-leading cause of death for people who are 15-24 year old in the US. We should take into
consideration that intensive studying has also a crucial effect on the psychology of students.
The relevance of the topic can be reflected by an event when a 17-year old girl killed
herself by drugs after gaining 1mark out of 25 in mathematics. This is only one example out of
many others happening in Kazakhstan. As a president of a human rights organization in the field
of health and social protection "Amansaulyk" Tumenova (2015) suggests, there are many causes
of teen suicides, including the stress while passing state examinations and relatively they are
planning to employ kid psychologists to each school.
As for the factors that motivated me to choose exactly this topic, firstly, studying in
Nazarbayev Intellectual school I often see how my peers are under the stress including me,
especially while summative assessments for each term. Participants need to renew their
knowledge every day while exam pressures and a huge number of worksheets and projects cause
an additional pressure for us. Secondly, after surfing the Internet I found out that school pressure
comes the first in the TOP-10 list of factors that cause suicide. Thirdly, when I was younger I
was shocked when I heard how students were ending up their lives by killing themselves because
of the fear that they will not be able to pass high-stakes state examinations and I finally decided
to observe this issue seriously because it continues to be a frequent phenomenon today.
Moreover, I am interested in psychology so now I have an idea to open a special website by IT
specialists where there will be information for students to get rid of possible psychological
disorders. They will also have an access to online conversations with school psychologists.
Aims
The purpose of this research paper was to find the connection between intensive studying
and an increased number of teen suicides.
The following questions helped to study the issue properly:
To what extent are people aware of the issue connected with teen suicides that were
caused by intensive studying?
How do students feel from school overload?
How serious are the teenagers’ concerns about an increased number of teen suicides?
What are the roles of our school staff in preventing suicides among teenage students?
The listed questions will help to investigate the problem of teen suicide and identify the
connection of this issue to the intensiveness of the school program and study overload that they
experience. By opinions of local students I found the level of seriousness of the issue and the
level of stress that most students feel in schools that might be suicide factors.
The outcomes were intended to observe the school students’ psychology and conditions
related to a big amount of work at school and to find the impact of school pressure on
committing suicide. Moreover, the results of the research can help to prevent psychological
pressure that students feel because of the stress from intensive studying.
Methods
The mixed design was quite advantageous for the research. Firstly, observing the problem
of intensive studying from a large number of people was needed by the quantitative research. It
was useful for quantifying behaviors towards the study overload and to do statistics by
generalizing results. Qualitative one was chosen to do an in-depth research and to have a broader
understanding of the issue. Overall, the mixed design was used to strengthen the quality of the
results found.
The primary research results were gathered by a survey and some interviews. The survey
was chosen because the procedure was not so time-consuming and anonymous answerers could
respond honestly. For close-ended questions, it was a unique instrument. The open-ended
questions were asked by a structured interview in order to provide more focus but still to give
freedom to interviewees to give broader opinions. As for the secondary research, internet sources
were used, especially online newspapers and reports to give the numerical data based on recent
news. By evaluating the credibility of sources with RAVEN criteria I could find the most reliable
ones and the help of the Literature review was significant in it. For instance, the World Health
Organization reports served as strong pieces of evidence.
As for the target population for a survey 11th grades students of Nazarbayev Intellectual
school were chosen because they face stressful situations due to the pressure before passing
high-stakes examinations, such as state tests or international tests, more often than younger
students and, therefore, their opinions were relevant. Moreover, it is the population that the news
has been warning us to concern about because they are likely to have a suicidal behavior.
Nevertheless, there was an access to students through emails or social networks so the survey
outcomes were obtainable and available. The sample size was 128 and this was enough to gather
necessary information but actually, 148 responses were collected. It was planned to have a
margin of error with a likelihood of 5% so the results were close to the sample size.
It was required to interview two school psychologists ( 1 male,1 female) about the issue.
They are aware of what difficulties do students mostly have, including the period of preparation
to exams because they maintain a close contact with pupils and, moreover, there was an access to
psychologists.
Before conducting an interview the interview protocol was given to each participant with
special notes informing that the interview would be audio recorded, the time(5-7 minutes) for an
interview and the number of questions(7) to be asked. Afterward, the informed consent form was
given asking for an agreement to take part in the study with a full explanation of the procedure.
After interviewing the transcripts were written.
For the survey, 7 questions were sent by email and some of them were handed out in a
printed version. Then consent forms were prepared with similar content as in an interview.
Finally, all responses were interpreted in charts and set out in Appendices.
There were several limitations during the secondary research, such as the sources without
verified authorships. Nevertheless, some perspectives about the issue were different and it was
difficult to pick credible information. The presence of unanswered questions from the survey
was an additional problem. The first, third and the fifth questions of the survey were answered
by 143, 145,147 respondents out of 148 while some participants did not commented properly for
the second question. For instance, there were answers like “нехватка мозгов” and “K”.
However, the results could be generalizable and are linked to the purpose of the research.
Context
“Suicide is a global phenomenon in all regions of the world” (World Health
Organization(WHO), 2012).A high level of suicides is observed among teenagers and therefore
teen suicide is a major concern today.“Every year, tens of thousands of Americans die from
suicide. It is the third leading cause of death among young people between the ages of 10 and 24,
amounting to about 4,600 deaths a year”(the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), 2015 ).There was a survey conducted in England among 6020 students. It was
investigated that 70% of young people who hurt themselves with intention to commit suicide
claimed that it was “because of worries about school work and exams”(Sharp, 2013). This
emphasizes the seriousness and the relevance of the issue in most of the countries and,
unsurprisingly, study load highly affects teenage students as well.
This problem also exists in Kazakhstan. “Kazakhstan ranked third in the world according
to the number of teen and kids suicides” (United Nations International Children's Emergency
Fund (UNICEF),2014). According to statistics, 86 Kazakhstani teenagers killed themselves in
2015 and 4 of them were committed during high-stakes state examinations (Turebayeva,2015).
There are several perspectives connected with the issue. Probably, the most significant
one is governmental. The majority of officials deny the connection of state exams with frequent
student suicides while others offer to do an in-depth research on the issue. As the chairman of the
Committee for Control of Education and Science of Kazakhstan Nyusupov(2015) claims, he
doesn't know any exact situations when teens died because of these tests. However, The Majilis
deputy Dariga Nazarbayeva noted that after the introduction of the Unified National Test(UNT)
the number of suicides has increased in Kazakhstan. If there were 209 cases of suicides among
Kazakhstani students in 2009, in 2010 237 were registered” (“ENT i suicide. Chto obshego?”,
2012).
On the other hand, there is also a social perspective which is controversial. Many people
are against the standardized state examination because they do not show the actual level of
knowledge and, furthermore, tests cause an additional pressure for students. Especially parents of
lost teenagers argue that their children died due to stressful conditions before exams.
According to Asautay (2015), activists are opposed to UNT due to the pressure on
children during exam preparation and before the actual test. Moreover, the head of the public
association of teachers of "Ar-Namys" Smirnova (2015) says that closed tests are primitive and
is the stressful form of assessments while students overseas, the US as an example, enter the
universities after collecting portfolio for years of studying.
All the sides mentioned above clearly reflect the problem and prove that study load can
also lead to tragic ends.
There can be several consequences of intensive studying for youth that may eventually cause
suicide:
hopelessness
fear to fail the test
excessive nervousness
sudden mood changes
anxiety
changes in regular habits, sleeping, eating
alienation from others
depression
Today there are many actions that are being taken at an international, national and local
levels. The Special Interest Group "Adolescent Suicide" that created an international network of
people involved in research and prevention of suicide among adolescents is one of the examples
of international organizations and groups. As for local efforts, a group of IT specialists worked
out a new app called “Entalapp” by which students join the competition with other students and
answer questions like in real exams(Utenova,2016). This is a joyful preparation that, likely,
prevents pupils from suicidal behavior. Likewise, there are a total of 8 thousand school
psychologists in Kazakhstan who were trained in suicide prevention skills in
2013(“Kazakhstanskiye shkol'nye psikhologi v 2013godu budut obucheny navykam profilaktiki
suicidov”, 2013).
Beginning with 2017, the Ministry of Education and Science decided to renew the format
of state examinations. According to Vice-Minister of Education and Science of Kazakhstan
Suhanberdieva (2016) ,the changes will ease the university entrance process and that all students
will have equal chances as well. This improvement will reduce the amount of stress that students
usually face.
Based on this issue the research was designed to clarify what influence does intensive
studying make on high-school students. This research work will give opportunities for students
to reflect on the importance of high-stakes exams and their psychological conditions during
preparation.
Results
The structured interviews and a survey were valuable for the project work because they
helped to prove the information found by secondary research and to add different perspectives
about the issue simultaneously. The main findings have already been described in Context
section.
To sum up, the issue of teen suicides is relevant enough and calls worries of most of the
respondents. However, it was found that the students’ and the psychologists’ opinions were
slightly different.
The results from the survey represented valuable data and the detailed analysis is
represented in Appendix. These are the main findings from the survey:
Approximately 80 percent of responses were “yes” showing the awareness of students
about the issue while only 24 students out of 148 did not know the existence of the issue
of teen suicides.
Answers to Question2 show that inability to cope with stress from studying mostly leads
to teen suicides (59.5 percent)and relationship problems(41 percent), emotional
difficulties (38.9 percent), bullying(36.2 percent), health problems(20.7 percent),
addiction(23.45 percent)and other factors (14 percent), such as depression, tragedies and
life barriers, lack of self-esteem and even the effects of social media, have an effect on
committing suicide as well.
The Chart-1 shown below represents the level of effect that intensive studying has on
teenagers.
Chart-1
Almost 50 percent of students selected the maximum degree of importance from a 5 point
scale so they strongly consider taking actions now.
There are negative consequences of intensive studying according to the results obtained
from Question7 (see Chart-2) because the level of study load was found to be high in our
school as it gained 61 responses out of 148 while only 24.8 percent showed "medium" or
"low" and almost 36 percent answered "very high".
Chart-2
An interview results represented another view towards the problem. School psychologists
discussed the topic in a broader form.
It was found that the cause of teen suicides are mostly several roots of continuous
difficulties that teenagers suffer from, however another interviewee shared that heavy stress and
an extreme anxiety have a greater impact. Moreover, the Unified National Test in Kazakhstan
was an example of a reason of teen suicides and the participants responded differently towards
this fact. One said that it is not a credible information because there were no spikes of suicides.
However both of psychologists suggested that the risk is high during examinations. Likewise,
there are actions being taken in all regions and schools with psychologists or others due to a high
level of stress during preparation. For the question asking for the influence of intensive studying
on youth they shared similar opinions: the feelings of a student is equal to an astronaut's before a
flight, therefore students should relax by time. As for the students of our school, they have a
greater pressure as they spend more time at school, especially during summative assessments the
number of patients rises. It is better to prevent the possibility of having a suicidal behavior by the
support of family members and the school workers or even specialists. For instance, the school
staff is already making an after-school activities to ease the condition before exams.
The data gathered relates to the purpose of the research written in Aims section as it
clearly identifies the connection between intensive studying of students and an increased number
of teen suicides and all Aims questions were answered consequently.
Overall, teen suicide is a major concern from both the students' and the specialists' sides
and intensive studying is one of the reasons that should be considered seriously.
Conclusion
Relying on the answers obtained from the research it can be possible to make the
following conclusion.
• To what extent are people aware of the issue connected with teen suicides that were
caused by intensive studying?
High school students and the psychologists were already aware of the issue of teenage
suicides caused by intensive studying. Moreover, the stress from being overwhelmed due to
studies is considered to have a crucial effect on youth and it may be a key reason of committing
suicide. Despite that, other people who did not take part in the research work might not be
acquainted with the issue very well. Therefore, an additional research should be done.
• How do students feel from school overload?
Students often feel stressed or nervous because of the studies and consequently most of
them recover slowly. However, the research doesn’t show how other students feel towards
intensive studying.
• How serious are the teenagers’ concerns about an increased number of teen suicides?
Mostly students showed a high level of concern about it. The majority of them ranked
five on a five-point scale thus acknowledging the importance of taking actions now.
• What are the roles of our school staff in preventing suicides among teenage students?
The school staff can organize after-school activities by preparing students
psychologically before students take the tests. However, either curators or teachers and definitely
parents should sustain them. This would reduce the amount of stress thus preventing the issue.
Therefore, the role of the school staff is very big.
To conclude, intensive studying appears as one of the reasons of teen suicides so now it is
seriously considered as a global issue. Because of the consequences of study overload, especially
before important tests, students feel more stressed and sometimes suicidal behaviors can be
noticed. Therefore, more actions should be taken and more attention should be paid for younger
people in order to avoid negative consequences of studying. Additionally, at least more research
should be done to do an in-depth observation and to warn people because parents or other
members of the society are worth to feel their responsibility for students. School staff and
teachers highly affect the students’ psychological condition caused by school pressure so the
research shows how attention from various sides has a significant impact on youth.
Evaluation
In general, the results of the research were obtained successfully and there is an answer to
the main research question.
Background research was valuable enough because all sources were credible and were
not outdated. Information found was proved by evidence, such as statistics or other trustworthy
data. For example, numerical data represented by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and
Prevention greatly proves the seriousness of the issue of teen suicides in the US while the United
Nations International Children's Emergency Fund truly demonstrates the high level of youth
suicides in Kazakhstan. As for the local sources, “Tengrinews” can be an example of a reliable
news website due to its reputation and reports based on statistics. However, there were different
perspectives towards the effect of examinations on students committing suicides in local sources
so the issue may not be completely investigated. Possibly, the numerical data may be decreased
to deny the connection between the Unified National Tests and teen suicides so the local sources
may have a vested interest. International organizations or websites like American ones may show
a particular country at a better condition by giving unreliable data as well. Also there were
sources of unknown authors or even with no date, so the credibility is not guaranteed in this case.
Distinct conclusions can be made from the survey based on sampled school students and
interviews as the answers were almost the same but it is not related to other society members.
Although another research work would give similar results that would be conducted
among others so the conclusions are generalizable.
My personal perspectives have not changed as the issue is really important and relevant.
Both primary and secondary sources just strengthened my concern. During the research work
interesting facts were found that did not conduce me to change my point of view towards the
current condition of students in Kazakhstan.
It would be much better if more interviews were conducted among specialists to reduce
inaccuracies and fallacious views. Furthermore, opinions of other school students would be an
additional source to give a deeper introduction of the problem of teen suicides. Although, the
results gathered were valid and can be confidently generalized.
Further research
The presence of problematic questions and new aspects require to be further investigated
and therefore there are several strategies on the way to improve the results.
If students’ parents or other responsible faces take part in the research work, it will be
much better to compare them with the high school students’ responses. This would
enable to observe the problem from another side and even to identify the roles of
different society members in students’ lives.
Undoubtedly, by asking for other school students would give more opportunities as the
answers will be compared with the already gained outcomes from NIS students. Their
perspectives may be different depending on the condition they are under during
examinations.
Conducting a primary research, namely interviews, among witnesses or those people who
knew the victims of a suicide would identify the real cause of tragedies as they know the
situation happened very well. Thus, more details would be gathered improving the
quality of the research.
Despite the fact that teen suicides caused by high-stakes examinations are occurring
comparatively rare now, the issue is still worth concerning about. Therefore, further
research should be done on solving it or preventing further tragedies. For instance,
changing the education system or improving the activities being done. Besides, it is
possible to conduct a survey related to a new version of the National Unified Test. Such
way it is possible to predict the future condition of students.
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