Language-Related Stress, Coping Strategies, and Well-being among Bilingual University Students: Implications for English-Medium Instruction
English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) presents both opportunities and challenges for bilingual and multilingual university students. Building on previous research which found that students generally reported manageable linguistic and psychological difficulties, the present study extends this line of inquiry by examining psychological well-being, resilience, coping strategies, and anxiety in a larger sample of 224 undergraduate students. Results showed moderately high overall well-being (M = 3.81), with Personal Growth as the strongest dimension and Positive Relations as the weakest. Students preferred problem-focused coping (M = 3.88) over emotion-focused regulation (M = 3.52). Female students reported higher anxiety, while first-year students showed lower resilience. Only 43.8% of students used university support services, with a clear preference for peer-support and expressive activities. The findings are interpreted through a language pedagogy lens, highlighting how academic language demands in EMI contexts interact with students’ coping resources and well-being. Implications for English language support and student services are discussed.
Authors
- Fatime Ziberi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4715-8601)
Institutions
- International Balkan University (MK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Published
- 2026-10-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23364088
- Primary Topic
- Student Stress and Coping
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00