Causes of higher levels of stress among students in higher education who used eLearning platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: This work aims to study the levels of stress among students using e-learning platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic in higher education institutions. The major factors of higher-level stress among the student community focused on this study are: Changes in academic environment, family, social, personal, health and cognitive. OBJECTIVE: the objective of this research the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) procedure was used to explore the relationship and its impact on various levels of stress. RESULTS: Data were collected by using a total of 1,000 email IDs of students that were made available by teachers from 12 Indian higher education institutions where they were enrolled and by using a random number method. With this procedure, a total of 800 email IDs were selected. The results drawn from this research are that students experienced more stress due to sudden changes in the academic environment, family, and personal factors. The stress levels of cognitive and social were found to be equally distributed among higher education students, but less than academic environment, family and personal. This research intends to fill the gap of short-term individual psychological changes that occur after the outbreak. CONCLUSION: Policy-makers can take note of the current study’s observations in continuing their fight against COVID-19 pandemic by improving the stability for student risk groups.