ORIGINAL ARTICLE P J M H S Vol. 15, NO. 4, APRIL 2021 967 Effect of Learning Styles on Self-Esteem and Stress Levels of University Students SADAF AIJAZ ABDUL RAHMAN 1 , HAFEEZULLAH WAZIR ALI 2 , GHAZALA RASOOL 3 , IRUM SIDDIQUE 4 1 Assistant Professor Psychiatry, Department of Medicine (Psychiatry), College of Medicine, Northern Border University, Ar’ar, KSA 2 Associate Professor Physiology, College of Medicine, Northern Border University, Ar’ar, KSA 3 Assistant Professor General Medicine, College of Medicine, Northern Border University, Ar’ar, KSA 4 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Punjab Medical College, Faisalabad Medical University Faisalabad Correspondence to Dr. Irum Siddique, Email: irum.siddique@gmail.com ABSTRACT Background: Assessment of an individual about themselves is quite important because it effects in several ways in entire life including student life. Aim: To assess the how the learning styles effects on self-esteem and stress levels of students. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was carried out among second year, third year, fourth year and fifth year students of Psychology department of University of Karachi. All data were collected by means of interview. To determine self-esteem, Rosenberg's self-esteem scale was utilized, which is regarded as a highly reliable and valid tool for the quantitative assessment of self-esteem. The Stress Scale was used to measure the levels of perceived stress (feelings and thoughts) experienced by the participants during the past month. To examine the effect of awareness of learning styles (LS) among the students varied methods was used of learning. SPSS version 21 was used for data analysis keeping a p-value of <0.05 as statistically significant. Results: There were a total of 240 students, 87 male and 153 were females. The students belong to middle and higher standards of living status. Results indicated that majority of students have normal self-esteem with high stress levels, which indicated that self-esteem may not always affecting level of stress, but it is the situation which might be affecting the self-esteem and stress. Furthermore, we observed that learning style greatly affects the level of self-esteem as well as stress. Visual and solitary learning style is most common among students in different educational year, while majority of students prefer visual style of learning. Conclusion: Effect of learning styles on self-esteem and stress levels of students with educational year of the students was found to be significant. Keywords: Learning style, assessment, level of student INTRODUCTION Educational performance has a remarkable effects of psychological wellbeing and due to the importance of this subject, it has been studied extensively along with impact of one`s self-esteem 1 , self-efficacy 2 , stress 3 and adopted style of learning 4 . Self-esteem is nothing but an attitude, that can be in favorable or against one`s self and that the self-efficacy linked with someone`s confidence regarding any skill or assigned task. In student`s life both of these factors have major role in academic performance 5 . If any student is under high levels of stress then it definitely impacts the level of self-esteem which is most probably inclined towards negativity than positivity 6 . More specifically, self-esteem lessened the detrimental effect of negative stressor assessments on daily negative effect 7 . Additionally, one area which is mostly ignored by researchers is learning style of students. The interaction of a particular teaching methodology with preferred learning styles of student may help the learner in learning. However, there are still contrasting findings regarding this claim 8 . In the present study, self-esteem represent personal variables, learning styles and stress represent environmental factors. Other studies have explored the impact of self-esteem on academic achievement and performance among health sciences students 9 . College or university life is a big transition from high school life for students. College life creates many challenges; they are to deal with unfamiliar faces and need to mingle in. Students learn to start socializing and develop opinions about themselves. Most of the time they learn to become more confident and composed, however, many students with low self-esteem cannot cope up with this new change 10 . Number of researches suggests Psycho Social Factors (PSFs) such as self-efficacy, learning behavior, motivation, self-esteem, academic stress and locus of control are predictors and facilitator forthcoming academic performance 11 . Lot of studies has been performed on the subject of self-esteem 12 in social psychology. Self-esteem development across adulthood has been in the center of interest for some time now. However, not much is known about factors that shape self-esteem and its development in the second half of life and whether the factors differ with age and gender 13 . Stress can also influence health throughout the lifespan. This is in part because “stress” is not a monolithic concept but rather, an emergent process that involves interactions between individual and environmental factors, historical and current events, and psychological and physiological reactivity 14 . Stress produce a negative impact on students’ endurance levels, specifically in new mature students, it was suggested that stress decreases one`s self-esteem 15 and increase concern of failure. Finally stress negatively affects self-esteem, regardless of whether a person has depression. Conversely, low self-esteem makes individual prone to in experiencing stressful events through an indirect effect via depression 16 .