Shortt, Chelsee

• Ph.D., Physical Education, University of South Carolina

Changes in Aerobic Fitness, Exercise Retention, and Sleep during times of No, Low, & High Academic Stress 

The mission of the Sports Sciences Department at Northern State University is to provide innovative educational experiences through practical application and investigative learning opportunities. The PI, Chelsee Shortt, is an integral part of this mission. Leading research on topics including the psychological underpinnings of exercise adherence, student-athlete mental health and stigma, sports performance and injury prevention, and pedagogical implications of motor development, Shortt has an approachable research agenda to assist many students interested in sports psychology, performance, or coaching.

In line with the mission of the department, Shortt has mentored thirty undergraduate and twenty-seven graduate students in her six years at Northern State University. Topics vary from skill acquisition and retention, strength programming on neutralizing bilateral strength imbalances, impacts of student athlete mental health (e.g., stress, anxiety, and depression) on athletic performance, varying warm up modalities on performance, and more. Shortt’s areas of expertise for mentorship include survey methodology, qualitative research, and correlation/regression data analysis.

Shortt has secured external research funding, including the NCAA Innovations in Research Grant and an EPSCoR grant. As a faculty mentor, Shortt has helped nine students obtain internal research grant funding. These grant opportunities are essential to students executing their research project, and consequently, the equipment purchased has helped students after them.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration and applied research, Shortt continues to advance understanding in sports performance, pedagogy, and exercise adherence, while building a research-rich environment for Sports Sciences Students at Northern State University.

The proposed study from Shortt, aims to examine how academic stress impacts aerobic fitness in college students, using both physiological and psychological measures of stress. Existing literature suggests that high academic stress negatively affects sleep, physical, and emotional health, and elicits physiological responses such as altered cortisol levels. Exercise has been identified as a moderating factor for stress, yet many college students remain inactive. This research will assess aerobic fitness (via VO2 max testing) during three key academic periods—no stress, low stress, and high stress—while also measuring salivary cortisol and self- reported academic stress using the Perceived Academic Stress Scale (PAS). Secondary goals include evaluating how sleep quantity and exercise adherence influence stress responses during these periods.

The study will use a repeated-measures, within-subject design, recruiting 30–50 full-time healthy college students ages 18–25. Participants will wear personal fitness trackers (e.g., Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin) for two weeks around each test period to gather data on sleep and physical activity. VO2 max will be measured with the VO2 Master Pro, which has demonstrated strong reliability compared to COSMED Quark. Academic stress will be gauged through PAS scores, and salivary cortisol will be assessed using ELISA kits. Data analysis will include repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlational analyses, with regression modeling to control for confounders like sleep and exercise.