Undergraduate Thesis

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the gaps in the education sector globally (Onyema et. Al, 2020). The switch to online learning, particularly in courses that were not originally designed for online delivery likely has increased stress among students. Aylie et al. (2020) found that the pandemic caused a higher incidence of depression, anxiety, and stress among university students. In response, the main goal of this study is to provide a glimpse of the relationship between the struggles and general anxiety experienced by undergraduate researchers of Olivarez College - = Parañaque during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines by gathering data using survey questionnaires. The research design used was descriptive-correlational. The data gathering method was through a researcher-made survey tool titled "researchers' struggles survey questionnaire" paired with a standardized questionnaire titled GAD-7 (Spitzer et al., 2006.) Purposive random sampling has opted applicable. Questionnaires via Google Forms were distributed online. Results show that the majority of the respondents (n = 48.65%) experienced severe struggles during research writing. General anxiety scores were also categorized and the majority (n = 43.24%) experienced severe anxiety. The result of the study revealed that there is a significant (P = 0.02) but weak positive relationship (r = 0.24) between the research struggles and general anxiety experienced by undergraduate researchers while writing research during the COVID - 19 pandemic in the Philippines. Even though there's only a weak positive relationship, the researchers of this study recommended that recognition of research struggles and researcher generalized anxiety can improve communication between researchers and users of research, and their advisors, facilitate the process of problem-solving and contribute to the practical use of research findings.