Protective vs Risk Factors for Stress and Psychological Well-being in Academic University Contexts

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About this Research Topic

Submission deadlines

  1. Manuscript Summary Submission Deadline 26 January 2025 | Manuscript Submission Deadline 16 May 2025

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Background

The evolution in recent research on the analysis of the factors of risk and protection of psychological wellbeing, in the university academic context, has progressed considerably in the last few decades. Thus, some trends have changed over the past 20 years:

1. The bio-psycho-social paradigm of health and illness has emerged strongly when analyzing psychoeducational problems. This assumption is very relevant because it has allowed for progress toward the analysis of scientific models more focused on psycho-social factors, emphasizing the analysis and understanding of functional behavioral factors. In fact, this perspective has highlighted the importance of investigating not only stress but also psychological well-being during learning activities and academic performance.

2. Simultaneously, the shift promoted by the Positive Psychology paradigm has moved the focus of study from models almost exclusively centered on risk factors—or characteristics of stress and/or academic failure—towards models that analyze protective factors—or promoters of well-being and academic success. This evolution is enabling better understanding and intervention in the development of conceptual models that provide students with strategies and tools to enhance their efficiency in learning tasks and improve their learning experiences, as well as their overall performance.

3. It has also led to the recognition that different levels of psychological analysis can be conducted when hypothesizing causes and explanatory factors. This has decisively contributed to adequately conceptualizing the contributions from various psychological disciplines in modeling protective and risk factors. The micro-analysis level has brought a wealth of research on neuropsychological protective and risk factors that affect learning and academic performance, with numerous contributions for intervention at the tertiary psychological prevention level (neuropsychological). The molecular analysis level has provided clear models of protective and risk factors originating from the individual, allowing for more effective intervention at the secondary prevention level (clinical-therapeutic).

However, one of the significant achievements of recent psychoeducational research lies in having developed models appropriate for a molar level of analysis (primary prevention level), independent of other disciplinary levels. The emergence of heuristics or utility models, conceptually broad and integrative, has enabled the integration of extensive prior evidence, which had provided specific partial evidence without a holistic psychoeducational view of such protective vs. risk factors. This distinctly psychoeducational, primary preventive perspective aims to integrate all the aforementioned factors into a complex heuristic that allows for the integration of psycho-social factors that have traditionally been overlooked in classic models. Interactive factors from the family, school, and contextual environments have been incorporated as protective vs. risk factors. Additionally, factors inherent to the teaching and learning process have been considered as intrinsically protective or risk factors; complementary to this, physical and psychological health factors have been incorporated into the explanatory model.

For all the above reasons, the objectives of this Research Topic is:

1. To collect partial or global theoretical and empirical evidence of the latest advances in psychoeducational research, focused on variables that can be protective or risk factors for academic stress, psychological well-being, and optimal performance in the university academic context.

2. To provide new evidence that helps to delineate the interactions between factors, as well as the modulation and mediation effects between the variables or factors proposed in the general heuristic model of primary prevention.

3. New evidence regarding the interaction between personal regulation factors and context will also be welcome, in explaining the effects on the rest of the variables.

Funding: Project Reference PID2022-136466NB-I00 (University of Navarra) Led by Jesús De La Fuente Arias and José Manuel Martínez Vicente (PIs) was funded under the Knowledge Generation Projects 2022 Funding Round of The Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) and Co-Funded by The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Research Group Reinforcement Project (University of Almería): P_FORT_GRUPOS_2023/66

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

  • Brief Research Report
  • Clinical Trial
  • Conceptual Analysis
  • Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
  • Data Report
  • Editorial
  • General Commentary
  • Hypothesis and Theory
  • Methods
  • Mini Review
  • Opinion
  • Original Research
  • Perspective
  • Policy and Practice Reviews
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  • Review
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  • Systematic Review
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Keywords: Protective vs Risk Factors, Stress, Psychological Well-being, University, Educational Psychology

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