INTRODUCTION:

Stress, low assertiveness, depression, hostility, social anxiety and aggressiveness are common problems among young university students¹. Assertiveness is defined as a verbal and nonverbal behavior enabling the individuals to follow their interests, stand on their own feet, and express their comments, feelings, and way of thought frankly without any stress. Assertiveness also includes respecting others’ rights². Assertiveness is the important social skill which promotes personal well- being.

It is learnable skill and mode of communication. It emphasizes direct expression of feelings, desires and thoughts in interpersonal context. Assertive behaviour promotes equality in human relationships, enable to act in own best interests, to stand for ourselves without undue anxiety, to express honest feeling comfortably and to express personal rights without denying the rights of others. Basic assertive human rights are to be treated with respect, to express feelings, opinions, and beliefs, to say “no” without feeling guilty, to be listened to and taken seriously, to make mistakes and accept the responsibility for them, to change the mind, to ask for what you want, to put yourself first, to set your own priorities and to refuse justification for feelings or behaviour. Assertive people respect and honor others, they are not passive and do not allow other people to manipulate them. Moreover, they respect others’ needs and demands and communicate with them tactfully³.

If a person does not develop assertiveness, they lack confidence and have low self-esteem. Lack of assertiveness can lead to depression from anger turned inward, resentment, frustration, anxiety, which leads to avoidance, poor relationships of all kinds, non-assertive people are often unable to express emotions of any kind, Physical complaints such as headaches, ulcers, high blood pressure (Barnette, 2009)⁴. The common three significant barrier to self-assertiveness are many people do not believe that they have right to be assertive, many people are highly anxious/fearful about being assertive, they lack the social skills for effective self- expression. Poor assertiveness can raise the academic anxiety and academic failure consequently⁵. It also leads to learning disabilities and decreased efficiency in students⁶.

As a student, it is required to learn a set of skills to engage in effective, confidence, and mutually beneficial interaction with other people. If they fail they cannot meet expectancy challenge and leads to poor communication, academic performance. Simultaneously presence of low assertiveness in the students result in interrupted educational performance, poor learning process, weakened ability, and undeveloped talents. Some students are not assertive enough to ask for help from others. Students with high level of assertiveness were dealing with lower adaptation problems and less frequently suffered from loneliness and also higher educational performance⁷. Research findings also reported that students from elementary school level to till collegiate program have the lack of assertiveness. Hence, the investigators aimed to conduct the study to assess the level of assertiveness, academic performance and find out the relationship between the assertiveness and academic performance among the arts and science students.

METHODS:

Observational retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted with 60 samples who met the inclusion criteria by convenience sampling method at selected arts and Science after obtaining formal permission from college authority. Explained the study in detail and obtained informed consent from the samples. Collected the socio demographic variables followed by assessed the level of assertiveness using assertiveness scale. Rating scale was distributed to all participants and instructed them to give their response. This scale consist of 15 questions and point was indicated as +3 always, +2 usually, +1 sometimes, -1 once in a while, -2 rarely and -3 never which was calculated by added all the “plus” responses, added all the “minus” responses and subtract the two totals to find the score. The score ranges from -45 to +45 and interpreted as -45 to -16: Very non-assertive, -15 to 0: situationally assertive, 0 to 15: Somewhat assertive, 16 to 35: Assertive, 36 to 45: Probably aggressive. Simultaneously the teachers were given the academic rating scale to rate the academic performance of the students. Academic rating scale consists of 11 questions and each question range from 1 to 5. The total score was interpreted as55 to 36: good, 35 to 26: moderate and 25 to 15: poor. Confidentiality was maintained throughout the procedure. Collected data were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics.

RESULTS:

Table 1: Frequency and percentage distribution of subjects according to their demographic variables.

S. No	Demographic Variable	Frequency	Percentage
1.	Age
	a) 17 years	27	45%
	b) 18 years	20	33%
	c) 19 years	13	22%
2.	Sex
	a) male	-	-
	b) female	60	100%
3.	Type of Family
	a) nuclear	37	61%
	b) joint	23	38%
4.	Birth Order
	a) 1^st	28	46%
	b) 2^nd	22	36%
	c) 3^rd	10	16%
5.	Residence
	a) rural	17	28%
	b) urban	43	71%
6.	Medium of Instruction
	a) Tamil	-	-
	b) English	60	100%
7.	Year of Study
	a) I	47	78%
	b) II	13	21%
	c) III	-	-

Majority of the students were from the group of 17 to 19 years and 100 percentage of them were female students and their medium of instruction is English out of which 78% of them were studying I year. Most of them (71%) were residing in urban area.

Table 2: Level of Assertiveness of the students.

S. No	Level of Assertiveness	Frequency	Percentage
1.	Very non-assertive	-	-
2.	Situationally assertive	4	6.7%
3.	Somewhat assertive	26	43.3%
4.	Assertive	30	50%
5.	Probably aggressive	-	-
Academic performance of the students
1.	Good performance	23	38.3%
2.	Moderate performance	34	56.7%
3.	Poor performance	3	5%

Table 2.reveals that out of 60 samples, 4(6.7%) students were situationally assertive, 26(43.3%) were somewhat assertive, 30(50%) were assertive and none of them were very non-assertive and probably aggressive.

With regards to academic performance, 23(38.3%) of the students had good performance, 34(56.7%) had moderate performance and 3(5%) of them had a poor performance.

Table 3: Mean and Standard deviation of level of assertiveness and Academic performance of the students.

S. No	Variables	Mean	SD
1.	Assertiveness	12.71	15.13
2.	Academic Performance	38.45	40.97

Table 3. denotes that assertiveness mean score was 12.71 with 15.13 standard deviation and academic performance mean and standard deviation was 38.45 and 40.97.

Table 5. Relationship between the assertiveness and academic performance

S. No

Variables

Mean

Correlation coefficient

Assertiveness

12.71

r = 0.59

df = 59

P<0.05

Academic Performance

38.45

Table 5 reveals that there was a positive correlation between the assertiveness and academic performance at level of P<0.05.

Table 6 Association between the level of assertiveness and selected demographic variables

S. No

Demographic

Variables

Very Non Assertive

Situationally

Non Assertive

Somewhat Assertive

Assertive

Probably Aggressive

Chi- Square

Age

17 years

18 years

19 years

-3

1.6

21.6

13.3

8.3

11.6

6.67

201.61

p= 15.51 S

Chi-square test found that there is significant association between level of assertiveness with age group at the level of p< 0.05.

DISCUSSION:

Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive not violating the rights of others. It is very important to reduce stress, communicate better and improve coping skill. The present study analyzed the relationship between the level of assertiveness and academic performance. Level of assertiveness is different from one person to another person and there are many factors which may influence the assertive behavior. In current study reveals that only 50% of the students had assertiveness and out of which 40% had good academic performance. This study findings consistent with the study conducted by Parray VM et al, and ascertained that among 100 (Undergraduate students) respondents, 11 were ‘situationallynon assertive’, 35 ‘Somewhat assertive’, 45 ‘Assertive’, and 9 were ‘probably aggressive’, irrespective of their gender, residence and education⁸. These findings are closely in line with the result findings of the study conducted by V.Hemavathy et al with 30 PG nursing students where the results revealed that majority of the PG students had fairly assertiveness skills⁹. Similar study was conducted by GhadaA.Eldeeb, et al to assess the level of assertiveness and stress among II year & IV year Undergraduate Nursing students and found that both assertiveness and stress levels were higher among both academic year students¹⁰. Similarly another study conducted by Anjali Devi Nelavala et at and reported that that out of 100 B.Sc nursing students, 3(3%) students had are non-assertive, 6(6%) students are situationallynon assertive, 27(27%) students are somewhat assertive, 41(41%) students are assertive and 23(23%) are probably aggressive¹¹. Ghatori, Tavakoli et al, had conducted a study to investigate the relation between self-esteem, assertiveness and academic performance in female high school students. The results showed the prevalence of low self-esteem and assertiveness was 16% and 13.8% respectively and there is a correlation between self-esteem, assertiveness and academicachievement¹². The present study also revealed that there is positive correlation between the assertiveness and academicperformance.NR.Prakash,et al conducted a study to assess the level of assertiveness among the undergraduate students and results shows that assertiveness among the UG students are moderate and there is a significant association between gender, steam of study, medium of instruction, sibling constellation with their selected demographic variables¹³. In present study also found that level of assertiveness is significantly associated with the age group.

The present study is limited to the analysis of factors associated with the assertive behavior and not found the relationship between the assertiveness with stress and coping ability.The study conducted by Disney Sabatina et al and found that 57.5% of the subjects were with low self-esteem and 42.5% subjects were with moderate Self-Esteem. 50% subjects were non-assertive, 37.5% subjects were assertive and 12.5% were super assertive and also moderately positive correlation between self-esteem and assertiveness. In present study did not assess the self- esteem level but self-esteem also one of the influential factor for the academic performance¹⁴. Social anxiety is also common problem which affects the academic performance. Velladuraiet reported that out of 50 adolescents 20 (40%) have moderate social anxiety and 30 (60%) have marked social anxiety and in control group out of 50 adolescents 22 (44%) have moderate social anxiety and 28 (56%) have marked social anxiety¹⁵. The study can intensively analyse the factors associated with academic performance other than assertiveness like stress, anxiety, depression, social anxiety in future and also correlated these factors with academic performance in future.

CONCLUSION:

Assertiveness is important for everyone and especially for students which helps to improve their coping skill, academic performance and reduce stress, fear and anxiety. The present study concluded that there is a lack of assertiveness among students which directly or indirectly affect their academic performance of the students. It is necessary that every school or college should provide the assertive training program to face the challenges and cope up with the current situation in the world.

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Received on 15.04.2019 Modified on 18.05.2019

Asian J. Nursing Education and Research. 2019; 9(3):293-296.

DOI: 10.5958/2349-2996.2019.00063.6