SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF STRESS ON GRADE 11 STUDENTS

AND IT’S COPING STRATEGIES AT GREEN FIELDS

INTEGRATED SCHOOL OF LAGUNA

A.Y 2017-2018

A Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of Senior High School Department

Green Fields Integrated School of Laguna

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course

General Academic Strand

Antay, Alyanna Jade G.

Goña, Kiana Louise O.

Legaspino, Vinz S.

Riñon, Renz R.

Salido, Edel P.

Sarmiento, Jake Justine P.

2019
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CHAPTER 1
The Problem and Its Background

In this part, the negative effects of stress and its relation with its coping

strategies will be defined and explained.

Introduction

A negative stress is one that surpasses a person’s resources that render

incapable of coping with a situation and can have a negative impact on the body.

As opposed to a positive stress which gives a person the incentive and energy to

react to a situation so to rapidly get back to a state of security for the body. Stress

is a coping mechanism and also the result of that mechanism (Nicole Jeanneau,

2014).

Negative stress is that which we often just call stress. We are feeling push,

strained and exhausted by school, work, home or environmental factors such as

having not enough money or overload school works. This sort of stress leaves you

feeling helpless or frustrated. Negative stress is also called distress. Distress

happens when one person experiences anxiety, depression, and trauma. Most

students experience stress because of pressure in school such as examinations,

deadlines, recitations, assignments, etc.

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For you to be able to manage your stress, you must think positively. Take

control of your stress and anxiety by learning effective techniques to combat it.

Sport and physical activity helps you to relax physically and also releases

endorphins in the body which produce a real feeling of well being. Walk, cycle,

swim, join the Sports centre, or a sports team. Joining a club or society,

maintaining an existing hobby or learning something new, talking to other people

– can all help you to take a mental and physical break.

The aim of this study is to determine the cause of negative stress among the

health, intellectual, and social factors of the grade 11 students and the strategies of

coping in Green Fields Integrated School of Laguna.

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Background of the Study

According to (George Fink, 2010) stress has a different meaning for different

people under different conditions. The first and most generic definition of stress

was that proposed by Hans Selye: “Stress is the nonspecific response of the body

to any demand.” Other definitions have evolved to cater for different situations-

for example, cognitive. This article explores the basis for these definitions and

their validity, and outlines the neuroendocrine mechanisms that sub serve the

stress response.

The concept of homeostasis, ‘stability through constancy’ as the main

mechanism by which the body copes with stress, has given way to allostasis,

‘stability through change’ brought about by central neural regulation of the set

points that adjust physiological parameters to meet stressful change.

This research was conducted for the researchers to know the negatives effects

of stress and its negative factors that affect the coping strategies of the grade 11

students at Green Fields Integrated School of Laguna.

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Statement of the Problem

This part indicates probably necessary in conducting the study and explain

how the findings will present information.

1. What are the profiles of the grade 11 students in terms of:

1.1 Gender

1.2 Age

1.3 Strand

2. What are the negative effects of stress to the grade 11 students in terms of:

2.1 Health Factors

2.2 Intellectual Factors

2.3 Social Factors

3. How does coping strategies affected by the negative factors of stress in

grade 11 students in terms of:

3.1 Poor Lifestyle

3.2 Academic Performance

3.3 Aggressive Behavior

4. Is there a significant relationship between the effects of stress and its coping

strategies of grade 11 students?

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Theoretical Framework
Gender

Health Factors
Stress Intellectual Academic
Factors Performance
Social Factors eeeeeeeeeee

Source:https://bohatala.com/effect-of-stress-on-academic-performance-of-students/

The theoretical framework shows how the health, social, and intellectual factors

connect with the stress also the gender. Most of the students have shown that the

positive relationship between stress in health and social factors affect the

students. Many researchers on this topic are done either on gender basic and

different educational levels and it is within this research framework that they

want to find out how much stress affects the students most especially the grade

11 students of Green Fields Integrated School of Laguna.

The model “Theory of Cognitive Appraisal” was proposed by Lazarus and

Folkman and it explained the mental process which influence of the stressors.

According to Richard Lazarus, stress is a two-way process; it involves the

production of stressors by the environment, and the response of an individual

subjected to these stressors. His conception regarding stress led to the theory of

cognitive appraisal.
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Conceptual Framework

INDEPENDENT
DEPENDENT
VARIABLE
VARIABLE
Effects of stress:
Effects of coping
 Health
strategies towards
Factors
stress:
 Intellectual
Factors  Poor Lifestyle

 Social Factors  Academic

Performance
FEEDBACK
 Aggressive
Behavior
The framework embodies the specific direction by which the research will be

commencing by describing the relationship between specific variables identified

by the study.

Based on (Bothala, 2012) several studies have shown the positive relationship

between stress by health and social activities affecting the academic performance

of students. Many researches on this topic are done either on gender basis,

different educational levels to find out the affect on academic performance of

students. It is within this research framework that we want to find out how much

stress on gender basis affects the academic performances of Masters Students of

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National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences. Consequently, this

paper attempts to determine the factors of stress resulting from health and social

factors affecting intellectual factors which on further analysis on gender basis

affect the academic performance of students.

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Significance of the Study

The study will be considered significant in many ways. For example, it will

help the students understand more things about stress and how they can cope

with it. Not only for students but also to the clinical administrators, school

administrators, different school organizations and student council, parents, and

also for the future researchers which will be explain on the following:

 Students - this will enable them to determine level of stress and

develop personal strategies to reduce stress which may post threat to

their sense of well-being and disrupt their normal functioning in the

related learning experience.

 Parents - this study will help them how to handle with stress and give

recommendations for their family, relatives, and acquaintances.

 School - this investigation will aid them to develop different

organizational activities or programs that will help the student

members to release their tension and manage stress.

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 The administrators - this will serve as a basis to encourage them to

support and approve school activities which will benefit the students’

well-being.

 Future researchers – the research will serve as a reference and base

line information to further develop on studies that enhance the stress

management techniques utilized in the related learning experience.

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Scope and Limitation

This study will focus about the negative effects of stress on grade 11

students of Green Fields Integrated School of Laguna and how will they be able

to deal and cope with it. This will also give them additional information and

better comprehension whenever they encounter stress.

The study will be limited to the currently enrolled grade 11 students of

Green Fields Integrated School of Laguna. We, the researchers will give

questionnaire to 60 students and know some other studies that are related to

this study and may assist to give better comprehension about how stress affects

a student and also the effective strategies on how to cope with it.
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Definition of Terms

This will elaborate and explain the definition of the unfamiliar terms used in

the study for the respondents and readers to understand further the study.

 Aggressive – an act of attacking or confronting people used for

dependent variable affecting the coping strategies on a negative way.

 Coping – to deal with and attempt to overcome problems and

difficulties by using strategies. This term is used to solve the first

variable which is the negative effects of stress.

 Chronic Stress – the response to emotional pressure suffered for a

prolonged period of time in which an individual perceives they have

little or no control that is used in the study.

 Health – the student’s mental and physical condition that is affected

due to the negative effects of stress.

 Intellectual – talks about the mental of the students in this study that

is affected by negative stress.

 Negative – a word that expresses denial, disagreement, or refusal that

is used in the study to identify what kind of stress affects the students.
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 Poor Lifestyle – living at a nonstandard considered uncomfortable in

a society which is one of the dependent variables affecting coping

strategies.

 Strategies – the skill of making or carrying out plans to achieve a goal

and to identify plans and skills for coping stress which is helpful to

the study.

 Stress – a tension experienced by an individual over a period of time

and is the main subject studied in this research.

 Stressors – something that makes a person feel anxious. Simply, a

source of stress. This is the cause of the main subject which is the

stress.
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Chapter 2
Review of Related Literature and Studies

In this chapter, the review of related literature, will be discussed how

stress is common to each other or simply how they are similar or different when

it comes of different related literature and studies. Here will be discussed about

different perspectives about stress.

Foreign Literature

Social Factors

A student’s life is subjected to different kinds of stressors, such as the

pressure of academics with an obligation of success, uncertain future and

difficulties envisaged for integration in to the system. Also such as many

assignments, competition with other students, failures, lack of pocket money,

poor relationship with other students or teachers, family or problems at home

(Fairbrother & Warn, 2013), These student faces, social, emotional and physical

and family problems which may affect their learning ability and academic

performance (Fish & Nies, 2012; Chewgrahan, Rogers & Yassin, 2013)

Intellectual Factors

According to (Yvette C. Terrie, BSPharm, RPh, 2010), stress is unavoidable,

but learning to manage it effectively is critical. Stress is a fact of life and can affect
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individuals in a variety of ways. At some point in life, every individual

experiences some degree of stress; some individuals experience stress more often

than others and some have difficulty dealing with stress. Stress can be

manifested from any situation or thought that causes an individual to experience

frustration, anger, and nervousness, whereas anxiety is a feeling of fear and

apprehension.

Yvette C. Terrie state that all of us will encounter stress and there’s no way

to escape on it even you try because stress is already part of our daily lives.

Stress has many ways to attack; it could affect a person really bad or even worse.

hey could be experiencing anxiety or even feel depressed.

Social Factors

Ibrahim (2010) defined “stress as a severe emotional response resulted from

internal or external change”. (Hussien and Hussien, 2016) defined it as the state

by which the individual undergoes from substantial and mental hyper tension

resulted from aspects that can't be gripped and exceeds human aptitude to deal

with. Stressors submit to the factors or stimulators that can be source of

intellectual or physical pressure. A number of scientists classify these stressors in

relation to their intensity, regularity or duration of the stress.

Ibrahim stated that stress cause changes in inner and outer factors of a

human. While for Hussien, stress takes of the capacity of a human that makes
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them difficult to interact with other people and sometimes cannot be controlled

by their anger when they feel stress. Scientists classified those stressors base on

the capacity and how stress lasts.

Social Factors

(Weightman, 2010) categorizes stressors into three major categories: 1)

Sudden trauma, 2) chronic stressors and 3) daily irritation. Keeping in mind this

ideology there are three chief trends in revising stress. First, stress is a stimulus

that threats the individual life, so stress is a self-governing variable invented

from the person’s interior surroundings that is within the body of the person.

Second, stress is retort to the exterior situations, so stress is treated as a

dependent variable which affects physiological, emotional and cognitive body

functioning of individual in all ways. Third trend is the transactional approach

which is a blend of the two earlier trends independent and dependent variable.

According to Weightman, he categorized stressors into three classifications.

First is the traumatic experience, second are the stressors that are chronic and

feeling irritated everyday. Stress is a stimuli that affects the physiological,

emotional, and cognitive body functioning of every person in many ways.

Health Factors

According to (Honor Whiteman, 2016), whether it is down to work pressure,

money worries or relationship troubles, most of us experience stress at some

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point in our lives. In fact, around 75% of us report experiencing moderate to high

levels of stress over the past month. It is well known that stress can cause sleep

problems, headache and raise the risk of depression. But in this Spotlight, we

look at some of the more surprising ways in which stress may harm our health.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) define stress as the "brain's

response to any demand." In other words, it is how the brain reacts to certain

situations or events. It is important to note that not all stress is negative. Many of

us who have been in a pressurized situation may have found that stress has

pushed us to perform better. This is down to a "fight-or-flight" response,

whereby the brain identifies a real threat and quickly releases hormones that

encourage us to protect ourselves from perceived harm.

It is when this fight-or-flight response overreacts that problems arise, and

this usually happens when we find ourselves exposed to constant threats. "Stress

is caused by the loss or threat of loss of the personal, social and material

resources that are primary to us. So, threat to self, threat to self-esteem, threat to

income, threat to employment and threat to our family or our health

Honour whiteman said even if it is about pressure in work, financial

problems or conflicts about relationship, many of us experience stress in our

daily lives. There are about 75% of us were experiencing moderate to high levels
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of stress over the past month. We all know that stress can cause problems in

sleep or what we call sleep deprivation, headache and feeling of being depressed.

Foreign Studies

Academic Performance

As found by (Minnesota; 2011) a research, performance of students in higher

education level depends on the undergraduate level of studies. Also found in

another study, past educational performances of students is considered to be an

important indicator in finding the future achievements of them, as said that the

better the previous academic performance; the better will be in the upcoming

endeavors (Durden and Ellis; Staffolani and Bratti; 2012). Students complained

about the stress they feel while giving their exams or any competition regarding

grades or in any case when they have so much to study and less time to do it.

Based on the research Minnesota, if the student achieved something in the

past educational experience it’ll be one of the important indicator for looking

their achievements in the future. Students complain whenever they feel stress

cause of too much to study but not enough time for it also due to overload school

works.

Aggressive Behavior
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The academic career development stress is an individualized phenomenon,

unique to each student and setting (Hudd et al, 2010). It is a subjective feeling,

which is hard to avoid by students. The sources of academic stress may be life

events or chronic strains related to academic programs and workloads.

In extreme situations, adolescents may seek professional help to cope with

the debilitating effects. This type of stress is recognized as the harmful physical

and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the academic

activities do not match the capabilities, resources and needs of the students

(Pramanik & Ray, 2013).

As stated above by Hudd et al, stress is very evident when talking about

academic performance. It a feeling that is very difficult to escape most especially

sto students pressured by the overload works in school. The cause of this stress

or what we call stressors came possibly from happenings in their everyday life or

workloads. Pramanik & Ray stated that they can seek help from the professionals

to cope with their stress. This stress is known as harmful and dangerous that

cause emotional responses when a student doesn’t have the capabilities in that

academic activity.

Social Factors

Academic stress among students have long been researched on, and

researchers have identified stressors as too many assignments, competitions with

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other students, failures and poor relationships with other students or lecturers

(Fairbrother & Warn, 2013).

Fairbrother & Warn classified the too many assignments, competitions with

other students, failures and poor social relationship with other students or

lecturers as stressors for the students that cause them to experience heavy and

negative stress.

Intellectual Factors

Students report experiencing academic stress at predictable times each

semester with the greatest sources of academic stress resulting from taking and

studying for exams, grade competition, and the large amount of content to

master in a small amount of time (Abouserie, 2010).

According to Abouserie 2010 Students suffering stress when it comes to

school works and other related academic works that resulting to them to be

pressured at any moment because they do not enough timed to do it seriously.

The tendency students rush their school works just because they want to pass it

on time.

Poor Lifestyle

When stress is perceived negatively or becomes excessive, students

experience physical and psychological impairment. Methods to reduce stress by

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students often include effective time management, social support, positive
Page 20

reappraisal, and engagement in leisure pursuits (Murphy & Archer, 2010). The

pressure to perform well in the examination or test and time allocated makes

academic environment very stressful (Erkutlu & Chafra, 2016). This is likely to

affect the social relations both within the institution and outside which affects the

individual person’s life in terms of commitment to achieving the goals

(Fairbrother & Warn, 2013).

Murphy & Archer, 2010 stated the way students perceived the stress is an

important factor in its seriousness. Negative or excessive stress perception

contributes to the students experiencing stress.

Aggressive Behavior

(Kendra Cherry, 2018) In psychology, the term aggression refers to a range of

behaviors that can result in both physical and psychological harm to you, others,

or objects in the environment. This type of behavior centers on harming another

person either physically or mentally. It can be a sign of an underlying mental

health disorder, a substance use disorder, or a medical disorder. Aggression can

take a variety of forms, including physical, verbal, mental, and emotional. While

we often think of aggression as purely in physical forms such as hitting or

pushing, psychological aggression can also be very damaging, intimidating or

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verbally berating another person and this is sometimes because of stress. For

example, are examples of verbal, mental, and emotional aggression.

According to Kendra Cherry, aggressive is an act of harming or hurting

another person through physical and mental, It can be a chance of being on a

health disorder, a substance use order, or a medical disorder. Kendra also stated

that the act of being aggressive to people is also a cause of experiencing stress.

Local Studies

Academic Performance

Kumar and Singh (2004) conducted a study on “Stress State and its

Relationship with Academic Performance among Students”. Stress State

Questionnaire and Academic Performance Task was used to collect information.

The results revealed that psychological stressors significantly influence academic

performance of the students. The students with high and low stress state levels

significantly differ in relation with academic performance, which indicated that

the level of stress among the students interfered with the performance in

examination, test etc.

Academic Performance

Kaplan et al. (2005) conducted a study on “School Related Stress in Early

Adolescence and Academic Performance Three Years Later: The Conditional

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Influence of Self Expectations”. Samples consisted of 1034 students during junior

high school and 3 year later during high school supported the hypothesis that

early adolescent school related stress both independently and in interaction with

high academic expectation, negatively affected academic performance 3 years

later. The results suggested that for students in high stress school environments,

and increase in academic expectations would serve to increase their school

related stress and impeded their academic performance.

Based on Kaplan et al (2005) stated that with the higher related stress would

probably result to increase student’s academic performance. In this study it just

proves that stress can also be positive in the way you manage your academic

performance and other factors that can affect you. Kaplan also stated that with

the high academic expectation it would be negative effects in your academic

performance but when you have high stress school environments, and increase

in academic expectations would serve to increase your school related stress and

impeded academic performance that will lessen your stress but this study is all

about the negative effects of stress and how to cope it that’s why the study that

Kaplan stated has proven that we should not expect to lessen out our stress.

Poor Lifestyle

(Britz and Pappas, 2010), research on stress assessed the sources and outlets of

stress among a group of 124 college freshmen at James Madison University.

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Results revealed that a high degree and frequency of stress exists among the

participants, with over 50 percent of students reporting high levels of stress. The

major causes of stress were found to be academic workload social pressures and

time management. High stress levels among participants associated with many

unhealthy behaviors, including compromised quality of diet and decreased

quantity of sleep. Laurence et al. (2009) conducted a survey of (453) graduate

students, (25%) reported elevated depressive symptoms in their student life, the

study indicated the exams, fear of falling, shortage in clinical time, decrease in

self-esteem and prompt reduction in time spent in leisure activity have been

associated with higher stress levels.

Britz and Papas 2010 stated the negative effects of stress in the students

especially when it comes to unhealthy behavior, lack of stress social pressure and

such that affects the health and poor lifestyle of the student.

Local Literature

Social Factors

The literature is not consistent on the importance of school stressors. De Anda

et al. (2010) argue that the greatest stress is school related, with school stressors

being reported with the highest frequency. However, in another study, non-

school sources of stress are found to exacerbate school related stress. In general

two major categories of school related stressors can be defined as (a) achievement
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or the mastery of academic subject matter and evaluation of performance; b)

social or the relationships with peers, interactions with teachers and participation

in classroom activities (Helms, 2016).

Social Factor

One of the most obvious changes in adolescence is that the hub around

which the adolescent’s world revolves shifts from the family to the peer group. It

is important to note that this decreased frequency of contact with family does not

mean that family closeness has assumed less importance for the adolescent

(O’koon, 2014). In order to establish greater independence from their parents,

adolescents must orient themselves toward their peers to a greater extent than

they did in earlier stages of development. The new focus on peers is an

important and healthy new stage in the adolescents development. Peer group

serve a number of important functions throughout adolescence, providing a

temporary reference point for developing sense of identify. Through

identification with peers, adolescents begin to develop moral judgement and

values and to define how they differ from their parents (Micucci, 2015).

Intellectual Factors

One model that is valuable for understanding stress among students is the

person-environment model affirmed by Misra& Kean (2010). The study suggests

that individuals can consider stressful events in school as demanding or

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frightening. This study proves that the perception of education as a threat brings

such stress which brings forth hopeless and a foreboding sense of loss, thus

leading to lower academic achievement.