ASSESSMENT OF WORKING STUDENTS’ STRESS LEVEL AND COPING

STRATEGIES IN WORKPLACE

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS PROPOSAL

In Partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Strand

HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
 CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
Introduction

Education enhance the economy and culture of a country thus; it is a landmark in the

growth of a community and offers the community with information and abilities, as well as

shaping the identity of a youth of today and relevant to the progress of an individual in life. It can

have a significant overall impact on human opportunities to sustain their quality of life. It is

commonly seen as the cornerstone of a society that gives economic wealth, social prosperity and

good governance (Idris et al., 2012).

Working whilst learning is basically influenced by the financial need: retreat in various

styles of understudy bolster; raise salary to have superior understudy comprehension, or support

against potential goals. (Williams, 2014) It has been seen that eight out of ten (77%)

undergraduates are now working part-time to help them fulfill their financial obligations at

school. Being a working student is most definitely exhausting in juggling your social life, family

time, education, and job (Mitchell, 2016). Almost half of all full-time undergraduate students

work excessive hours which impacted their academic performance and the general efficiency of

their education. Around the same time, almost all of these students who reported that they'll

never be able to afford college if they did not work. As tuition expenses have soared, government

funds have not kept track, and students will face much more pressure in the coming years to

afford college. According to The Working Student (2016), creating employment openings for

Filipino working students include internet jobs, paying corporate internships, fast-food workers,

and school work. Filipino students are failing because they have to follow the expectations of
their jobs so that they don't risk their job and maintain academic success so that they don't get a

disappointing result.

Student stress may come from expanded workload, new obligations, shifts in sleep

schedules, depression, anxiety, pressure, educational strain, and personality stress. Stress is

defined as a 'flight or battle' reaction (Harvard Medical School, 2018). Stress is a physiological

and mental response that people feel when they face changes in their lives. (National Center for

Complementary and Integrative Health, 2020) Conflicts between work and non-work realms can

result in potential losses such as stress, exhaustion, lower levels of work satisfaction, and

disturbed family fulfilment. (Okeke, 2011) As a consequence, working online students can still

face work-family problems, and an added role as a student may contribute to the neglect of those

responsibilities and/or job overloads. (Lei & Gupta, 2010)

Coping with stress is a person's deliberate attempt to control the pressure and demands of

an incident that is viewed as traumatic. A lot of research has been conducted in recent years to

monitor and handle people's stress or anxiety. (Goodman, Kashdan, & İmamoğlu, 2020) The

coping strategies plays a major role in overcoming or minimizing the stress undergone by

individuals. Students face a lot of pressures in their day-to-day lives, hence the concept of these

challenges, which add to tension, expose a thriving academic life (Pariat et al., 2014). All of

them face hurdles and problems in their studies and their working lives. The coping strategies,

which focuses on the situation, is a more aggressive strategy that involves reasonable solutions

based on facts and expected behavior against causes of stress. Coping with a reliance on

emotion, in addition to being a passive technique, means suppressing feelings that exist against

causes of stress.
 Coping strategies vary to the point that a person perceives a situation as stressful and

determines that he/she has the requisite tools to cope with what has been called stressful. This

prompt the researchers to come up with this study. The researchers opted to make this study to

gauge the stress level among working students and the relationship of its coping strategies.
Statement of the Problem

In this study, the researchers would like to know the level of stress among working students.

Specifically, this study will attempt to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of stress among working students in terms of:

a. Family- related stress;

b. Academic- related stress;

c. Work- related stress;

d. Social support- related stress?

2. What is the level of coping strategies among working students in terms of:

a. Positive reappraisal;

b. Self-control;

c. Confrontive Coping?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the level of stress and level of coping strategies

among working students?

Objectives of the Study

The main objective of this study is to know the level of stress and coping strategies among

working students. Specifically, this study aims to:

1.To assess the level of stress among working students in terms of:

a. Family- related stress

b. Academic- related stress

c. Work- related stress

d. Social support- related stress

2. To determine the level of coping strategies among working students in terms of:

a. Positive reappraisal

b. Self- control

c. Confrontive coping

3. To evaluate the significant relationship between the level of stress and coping strategies

among working students in workplace.

Significance of the Study

The result of this study is beneficial to the following:

Working students- The researchers believe that the working students will clearly benefit on this

study. The result of the study will help more working students for they will know what strategies

they should do to cope up with stress and how will they balance school and work.

Teachers- As this study aims to assess working students’ stress level and coping strategies in

their workplace, teachers will be able to be more considerate. The findings of the research will

enable the teachers and motivate them to learn about solutions that will offer the students the best

guidance.

Parents- The findings of the study will serve as a guide for parents to assist their child/children

on coping with the students’ stressors.

Future researchers- The results of the research will act as a reference material and guidance for

prospective researchers who plan to perform the same study.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

This study will mainly assess the level of stress and its relationship to coping strategies

among working students. This involves a survey limited only among selected 30 working

students specifically in their workplace, Intelliworx Company, Labangan, San Jose Occidental

Mindoro during the second semester of academic year 2020-2021.

The researchers considered working on this study to ascertain if there’s a significant

relationship between the stress level among working students and its coping strategies.
Conceptual Framework

The framework that will guide this study is presented in Figure 1 below.

DEPENDENT VARIABLE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

Stress Assessment Level:

Coping Strategies:
a. Family- related stress

b. Academic- related a. Positive reappraisal

stress b. Self- control

c. Work- related stress c. Confrontive Coping

d. Social support- related

Figure 1. The framework shows the relationship between the dependent and independent

variables of the study. This shows relationship of stress assessment level (DV) and the coping

strategies (IV) among working students.