Evaluation of Academic Stress Caused by Virtual Education and its Relationship with Academic Self-Efficacy among Students of Payame Noor Universities in Yazd Province

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the level of academic stress caused by virtual education and its relationship with academic self-efficacy among students of Payame Noor universities in Yazd province. Methodology: This is a descriptive correlational study. The statistical population includes all students (boys and girls) in the fields of educational sciences, psychology and accounting that 319 people (175 people in educational sciences, 93 people in psychology and 50 people in accounting) have participated in this study as a sample and based on voluntary sampling method. , Between 1-4 semesters, have had virtual education. Due to the impossibility of conducting the questionnaire in person, the link of the questionnaires was published in virtual groups and the implementation and distribution of the questionnaire was done online among students of all three disciplines. Academic stress questionnaires (31 questions) developed and validated by Reza Pouladi Reyshahri (1996) which has been modified based on the components of virtual education and has been re-validated according to the two variables of academic stress and educational environment stress. The student academic self-efficacy questionnaire (32 questions) was developed by him and Faraman (1988) to assess students' academic self-efficacy beliefs and is based on a five-point Likert scale (very low to very high). Each subject has a value between 1 and 5, which measures the academic self-efficacy of students and has a validity coefficient of 0.84. In order to analyze the data, descriptive statistics and regression and correlation analysis tests have been used.  Findings: According to the significance level of t-test, the difference between the mean stress of students' educational conditions and the stress of their educational environment is significant. According to the average scores, it is observed that the amount of stress in students 'study environment is more than the stress in students' educational conditions. Considering the significance level of one-sample t-test, the difference between the mean stress of students and the assumed mean (81) is significant. Conclusion: According to the mean scores, it is observed that the level of academic stress of students is lower than the average and is in the low stress class (39.98) and their average self-efficacy is in the average (89.43). The results (Table 10) indicate that the coefficient of determination is 0.006, meaning that only 6% of changes in student self-efficacy are explained by the variable of academic stress and there is a significant negative relationship between the variable of academic stress and self-efficacy.