The perceived stress level of students in hybrid classes : the influence of Job Characteristics by Hackman & Oldham

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many changes in our everyday lives – especially for university students. Due to the fast spreading of the very infectious virus other options to conventional On-Site Courses have developed (Online Courses & Hybrid Courses). The aim of this thesis is to investigate if the changes in routines and tasks cause Stress to students, or if it even made their lives easier. To compare the aspects between On-Site, Hybrid and Online students, the Job Characteristics model by Hackman & Old-ham (1976) and the transactional stress model by Lazarus & Launier (1984) is used to answer this research question: What influence do perceived Job Characteristics have on the perceived level of stress of students that attend different types of classes? With the help of quantitative research, a survey, sent out to students in Germany and in Iceland, was analyzed. For the questionnaire the Perceived Stress Questionnaire by Fliege et al. (2009) was used, as well as the Job Description Survey by Hackman & Oldham (1974). Additionally, further control variables were investigated. The statisti-cal analysis was first made descriptively, then inferentially with t-tests, ANOVAs and multiple regression analyses. No Job Characteristic was found to affect Stress of students in this sample. Further, it was found that Task Significance was significantly higher in Online Courses than in Hybrid Courses or On-Site Courses. To give practical implication, first the reason for this difference has to be found. In addition, the results show that students living in a household with children were significantly less stressed than those who do not. Howev-er, the sample size (n = 60) is very small to make a meaningful impact in science. For future research it is suggested to avoid these measurement issues, and to do a mediation analysis for Job Characteristics, Stress, and Job Satisfaction/Job Motivation which can be interesting to gain further understanding of the topic.