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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 203 (2015) 433 – 437

International Conference EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY CHALLENGES - TEACHERS

FOR THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY - 3RD EDITION, EPC-TKS 2015

Differences in Academic Specialization regarding Stressor

Perception, Coping and Stress Effects Perception in Young Students
Mihai AniĠeia*, Florentina Cojocarua, Vlad Burtaverdea, Teodor Mihailaa
a
University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

This study aims to highlight how academic specialization influences the variables: self-perception of stress, coping mechanisms
in students at the Faculty of Psychology and students from the Faculty of Chemistry. This study involved 63 subjects, final year
undergraduate students at two universities, with different profiles. Hypothesis 1 was supported by the data. Research results have
shown that academic specialization significantly influences self-perception of stressors in students of Psychology and students of
the Faculty of Chemistry observing that students from the Faculty of Chemistry have significantly higher stress levels than the
students from the Faculty of Psychology.
© 2015 The
© 2015 TheAuthors.
Authors.Published
Publishedbyby Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of EPC-TKS 2015.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of EPC-TKS 2015.
Keywords: stress, educational psychology, coping, perceived stress

1. Introduction

According to Selye (1956) stress is defined as a general nonspecific response of the body to the external factors
action, called stressor agents, which can be varied (physical, chemical, biological and psychological). Selye (1956)
insists that stress does not have an independent existence, so stress state cannot exist in the absence of specific stress
agents actions. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) define stress as "the cognitive and behavioral effort to reduce, rule or
tolerate any external or internal solicitations that exceed personal resources (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 cited
Iamandescu, 2002). The cognitive theory of stress and coping process (Lazarus, 1966, Lazarus & Folkman, 1984)

*
Corresponding author: Mihai Anitei Tel.: +040723157899
E-mail address: mihai.anitei@unibuc.ro

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of EPC-TKS 2015.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.08.320
434 Mihai Aniţei et al / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 203 (2015) 433 – 437

was and continues to be a model based on evaluation. The early formulation implies that the evaluation process was
most heavily involved at the start of the event in terms of evaluating its personal significance (first evaluation) and
assessment of options for coping (secondary assessment). Together these two forms of assessment determined the
extent to which the transaction was considered a threat or challenge. Bad evaluations were accompanied by negative
emotions such as sadness or anger and threatening assessments were accompanied by negative emotions such as
anxiety or fear. Positive emotions such as excitement, desire and confidence have occurred in connection with the
reference to the challenge.
Academic stress is the culmination in student activity, both because different workloads as well as due to the fact
that during this period, students are in a stage of their lives when they are facing various changes such as college
admission, separation from family, entering labor market, adapting to an environment less common. Possible causes
of stress are extremely numerous. The authors mention sources such as fear of lagging behind, finding the
motivation to learn, time pressure, financial worries, concerns about the academic skills that they lack (cited
Jayakumar and Sulthan, 2013). Exhaustion leads in turn to psychological stress, depression, suicidal ideation,
anxious behavior and other personal and professional difficulties (Pope & Tabachnick, 1994; Smith & Moss, 2009).
The faculty-student interactions rate showed a similar association, recent data suggesting that constant, reliable,
supportive interactions between faculty and student can help the student to effectively manage stress (Clark
Murdock, & Koetting, 2009; Inman et al. , 2011). Often coping is understood as the relationship of interaction
between people and the stressor. According to Lazarus & Folkman (1984), cited Kepalaité, (2013) this depends on
how the person perceives the importance of the situation and the way it uses personal, cognitive and behavioral its
resources as ways of managing the problem to resolve the stressful situation.
AniĠei & Chraif (2013a) were interested to highlight possible gender differences in measuring positive and
negative emotions among Romanian high school students, AniĠei & Chraif (2013b) studied the relationship between
perceived stressors and positive and negative emotions at young Romanian students, Anitei & Chraif (2013c) were
involved in a Validation study regarding coping styles and emotions at psychology students, Anitei, Chraif & Minea
(2013) studied influence of fatigue on aspiration level, performance motivation and frustration at young students,
Chraif, Anitei & Marin (2013) showed possible correlations between reaction time, performances in competition and
motivation from competition differences at psychology students and Dumitru, Chraif & Aniei (2014) highlighted
possible correlations between motivation and cognitive tasks at psychology students.

2. Objectives and hypotheses

2.1. Objectives

• Highlighting how academic specialization affects self-perception of stressors in students of the psychology
faculty and students of the faculty of chemistry.
• Highlighting how academic specialization influence coping mechanisms in students of the faculty of
psychology and students of the faculty of chemistry.

2.2. Hypotheses

• Specialization significantly influences academic self-perception of stressors in students of the psychology

faculty and students of the faculty of chemistry.
• Specialization significantly influences academic coping mechanisms in students of the psychology faculty and
students of the faculty of chemistry.
 Mihai Aniţei et al / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 203 (2015) 433 – 437 435

3. Method

3.1. Participants

The data come from 63 subjects, undergraduate students in the last year at two different profiles faculties namely
Faculty of Psychology and Faculty of Chemistry. 34 subjects are students of the Faculty of Psychology and subjects
are students of the Faculty of Chemistry. Of these, 6 were male and 57 were female, with ages scales running
between 20 and 33 years (M = 21.7; SD = 1.93).

3.2. Measures

In order to obtain data, subscales of Professional Self-Assessment and Stress Questionnaire CAPES adapted for
undergraduate students from Occupational Stress Inventory Pitariu (2008) were used.
Subscales used to measure the dependent variables are:
Chapter 4 "sources of tension" variable measuring the self-perception of stressors; The chapter refers to assessing
possible sources of tension in service, depending on the intensity of pressure that people think they can exercise and
comprises 40 items which subjects may respond to on a six-levels Likert scale: 1 -Definitely not a source of tension
6 - Definitely a source of tension.
Chapter 5 "How do you handle stress to which you are subjected", variable determining coping mechanisms. This
chapter allows studying alternatives to combat stress and the extent to which people use them as a way to solve a
stressful situation. It includes 13 items which subjects may respond on a six-level Likert scale: from 1 to 6 never use
- I use very often. Chapter 7, Section 6 "Your health" and section 7 "Measuring labor emotions", which measures
the self-perception of the effects of stress. Section 6 of the questionnaire allows assessing the extent to which, in the
past four weeks, people had medical problems; employment health assessment and comprises 20 items which
subjects may respond on a four levels Likert scale: 1 - Not at all 4 - Much more than usual.

3.3. Procedure

The results of researches are strongly influenced not only by the characteristics of the instruments used, but also
by how one carries out their application. The questionnaire was applied in a laboratory at the Faculty of Psychology,
individually and collectively, according to the available time of the subjects. Testing was conducted in a quiet
academic area with optimal light. Subjects were told to answer truthfully. The subjects had to choose the answer that
fit them best, without fear, as there are no good or bad, right or wrong answers. Before the questionnaires were
administered to subjects a short training, which ensured them that the data and their answers are confidential, asking
them to be seriousness and objective in completing the questionnaires. Participants also completed an informed
consent form.

4. Results

To test the research hypothesis the non-parametric Man-Whitney U test was used. The Mann-Whitney test is
used to test the difference between independent groups, being the test equivalent of the parametric t test.

Table 1. Results of the Man-Whitney U non-parametric est according to the profile of the faculty.
Stres Coping WAI_total
Mann-Whitney U 255,000 438,000 460,000
Wilcoxon W 850,000 873,000 895,000
Z -3,286 -,760 -,456
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) ,001 ,447 ,648
436 Mihai Aniţei et al / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 203 (2015) 433 – 437

Table 1 shows the results of the test Man-Whitney U non-parametric test according to the profile of the
faculty. Specialization significantly influence academic self-perception of stressors in students of psychology and
chemistry students. Hypothesis 1 of the study is confirmed. Thus, it appears that there is a statistically significant
difference between the stress according to faculty profile (U = 255, Z = -3.28, p = .001 <0.01), observing that
chemistry students have a level of stress significantly higher than psychology students (M3 = 25 <M4 = 40.21).
Academic specialization statistically significant influences coping mechanisms in psychology students and
chemistry students. Hypothesis 2 is not confirmed. There is no statistically significant difference between coping
mechanisms depending on faculty, (U = 438, Z = -.76 p = .447> 0.01), so that students from psychology and
chemistry students have the same level of coping mechanisms M3 = 33.62, M4 = 30.1.

5. Discussion

After processing all the obtained data, three hypotheses are taken into consideration namely verifying that
academic specialization statistically significant influences variables self-perception of stressors, coping mechanisms
and self-perception of the effects of stress on psychology students and chemistry students. After statistical analysis
only one hypothesis was supported, hypothesis 1: academic specialization significantly affects self-perception of
stressors in psychology students and chemistry students. The difference is that chemistry students had stress levels
significantly higher than psychology students. The similarities of the two samples on which the research was
conducted could be a factor that led to the rejection of hypothesis 2. Both groups of students were in the final
undergraduate, of the same age, and the majority of participants in both samples were females. Students that took
part in the study are in the final undergraduate year. It is a moment of existence full of pressures, both external and
internal, coming from all directions. On the academic front they face the most difficulties.
Priorities are different from one student to another during this period. They differ depending on the event which
the student feels to be the most stressful, depending on how each manages to adopt a coping mechanism to reduce
pressure. Authors like Brandi, Koon, Mewaldt and O'Connor (2011) argue that organic chemistry is perceived
traditionally as a challenging course where the success rate is 30% -40%. The findings of this study strengthen
current research results which confirm that chemistry students have a higher level of perceived stress. Failure is
rather a stressful factor that disrupts academic activity. El-Ghoroury, Galper, Sawaqdeh, Bufka (2012) argue that
there is no published empirical research demonstrating that stress leads to psychology graduates having low
performance and being inadequate or that stress management skills will prevent future issues of competence .

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