STRESS AND COPING STRATEGIES AMONG SENIOR HIGHSCHOOL STUDENT

Chapter 1: Introduction

Background of the study

People all over the world experience one form of stress or the other irrespective of their race,
color and ethnicity, professional or academic background. Anspaugh, Hamrick, and Rosato
(2003) shared the view that stress came in several forms and affected people of all ages and
walks of life. This implies that stress is a part of life and has many causes to it and that the
degree of stress in our lives is greatly dependent on factors, such as the physical health of the
individual, the quality of our interpersonal relationships, the number of commitments and
responsibilities we shoulder, the degree of others’ dependence on and expectations of us, the
amount of support we receive from others and the number of changes of traumatic events we
go through in our lives. This means that life itself is stress related depending on the individual’s
lifestyle and the level of cultural development. Authors, such as Taylor (1999) and Steptoe
(1997) indicated numerous different definitions of stress, used by psychologists, medics,
management consultants, among others. In the opinion of Taylor (1999) and Steptoe (1997),
stress was made up of many things including a host of related experiences, pathways,
responses and outcomes caused by a range of different events or circumstances. Taylor (1999)
and Steptoe (1997) opined that what complicated this was the fact that intuitively, we all felt
that we knew stress since we had all experienced it in life. Thus, different people experience
different aspects and identify with different definitions.

One’s knowledge and experiences of stress should also expose one to the causes of stress, such
as time constraints, workload, health-related problems and financial difficulties which may
exert more pressure on the individual than he/she can really cope with. It is in this light that
Goldberger and Breznitz (1993) agreed with Lazarus and Folkman (1984) that stress was a
condition or feeling experienced when a person perceived that demands exceeded the personal
and social resources that the individual was able to mobilize. To them, people feel little stress
when they have the time, experience and resources to manage a situation.1
Statement of the problem

This study aims to determine the stress and coping strategies among senior highschool student.
Specifically, it seeks to find answer the following questions:

1.) What are the causes of stress usually experience by the senior highschool student?

2.) What are the effect of stress among senior highschool student ?

3.) What are the coping strategies use to minimize stress among senior high school student?

Objectives of the study

This study was conducted to determine the stress and coping strategies among senior
highschool student, especially it aims:

1.) To identify the causes of stress usually experience by the senior highschool student.

2.) To identify the effect of stress among senior highschool student.

3.) To determine the stress coping strategies use to minimize stress among senior highschool
student.

Significance of the study

To students. This study will give idea on how they are going to deal with their problem.

To the faculty. The findings from the study can help the Asia college management,
administration and counseling unit to recommend the appropriate counseling services for the
students.
To future reseacher. The knowledge derived from this study will serve as reference for future
researcher in conducting another related research.

Scope and Limitation

This study will be conducted in Asia college, senior highschool student aged 16-19 years and
above, either male or female. It was focus only on identifying the stress and coping strategies,
and the causes and effect of stress among senior highschool student.

Definition of terms

1.) Anxiety - fear or nervousness about what might happen.

2.) Constraints - something that limit or restricts someone or something.

3.) Coping strategies- refers to the specific effort that people use to master reduce or minimize
stressful event.

4.) Stress - a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work and etc.

5.) Workload - to many work that is expected to be done.

Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature

Stress comes in different forms to an individual’s daily life. Stress is a bio-psychosocial model
that refers to the consequence of failure of an organism to respond adequately to mental,
emotional or physical demands, whether actual or imagined cited in Al-Sowygh, (2013).
According to Akhlaq, Amjad and Mehmood (2010), stress is seen as a psycho physiological
process, which results from the interaction of the individual with the environment and results
in disturbances caused to the physiological, psychological and social systems, depending upon
individual characteristics and psychological processes. The individual characteristics may
include factors such as sex, health status, heredity, and socioeconomic background.
Psychological processes refer to such factors as attitudes, values and various personality
dimensions. (Gormathi, Kadayam, Soofia & Ahmend, 2013; William et al., 2010).

For an undergraduate student, stress may be caused by failure in academic work, financial
problems, health problems, loss of a family member or friend and other social problems (Hung
& Care, 2011; Smith, Rosenberg, & Timothy Haight, 2014). Such events that bring stress are
called stressors and a sudden change in these stressors may affect the persons’ physical or
mental health. Studies conducted on university students in the USA, UK and Saudi Arabia reveal
high academic workload, difficulty reading textbooks, family related problems, health related
problems and financial problems as most of the sources of students stress (AlSowygh, Alfadley,
Al-Saif, & Al-Wadei, 2013; Chao, 2012; Saklofske, Austin, Mastoras, Beaton, & Osborne, 2012).4

Empirical evidence of the impact of stress on the individual has shown that depending on the
stress coping strategies of the individual, stress could be very harmful to a person’s physical and
mental health (Akhlaq et al., 2010; Al-Sowygh, 2013; Hung & Care, 2011; Smith et al., 2014).
The effects of stress in the literature stem from physical, psychological to behavioral problems.
Some of the physical problems of prolonged stress are hypertension, high cholesterol level,
ulcer, arthritis and heart diseases (Akhlaq et al., 2010; Johnson, Wasserman, Yildirim, & Yonai,
2013; Ramos, 2011). Psychological effects of stress could be anger, anxiety, nervous tension,
depression, boredom. Direct behavior that may accompany high level of stress include under-
eating or over-eating, increased smoking and alcohol use, and drug abuse (Esia-donkoh,
Yelkpieri, & Esia-donkoh, 2011; Hung & Care, 2011; Ramos, 2011). The literature furthermore
documents that high levels of stress if not controlled could result into poor academic
performance, examination malpractices and incidence of improper behavior among tertiary
students (Rourke et al., 2010; Soliman, 2014).

Coping strategies to reduce stress is a necessary condition for preventing the harmful effects of
prolonged stress (William et al., 2010). Coping strategies refer to the specific efforts that people
use to master, reduce or minimize stressful event. Coping is multi-dimensional and involves
various strategies of which some are functional than others (Gnilka, Chang, & Dew, 2012). Chao
(2012) identifies two important ways of managing stress; namely social support and
dysfunctional coping strategies. Social support such as seeking support from families and
friends naturally help people to manage stress. Dysfunctional coping strategies include:
5focusing on and venting of emotions; behavioral disengagement and mental disengagement.
Supporting this view of coping is what Lazarus and Folkman cited in (Chao, 2012) identified as
problem-focused ways of managing stress referring to attempts to engage, act on, or change
the perceived stress. The issue of social support and coping has received considerable attention
in the literature, indeed, social support has been found to be related to problemfocused coping
(Soliman, 2014). This assertion is corroborated by Saklofske, Austin, Mastoras, Beaton and
Osborne (2012) who suggest that relaxation, exercises, maintaining good health and time
managements are some ways of managing stress. A study by Sideridis (2008) reveals five most
frequently used coping strategies by students; browsing the internet, sleeping and resting,
watching TV shows or movies, and instant messaging.

Chapter 3: Methodology

RESEARCH DESIGN

This study utilizes a phenomenological research Design since it generally aims to find answer as
to why such phenomena occurs to the subject. The researcher based this study from her own
observation and experience.

Chapter 4: Results and Discussion

Table 1. Causes of stress usually experience by the senior highschool student.

Respondent 1. Financial problem, difficulty of reading and understanding modules

Respondent 2. Difficulty of reading, and understanding module, inability to manage time,
financial problem.

Respondent 3. Difficulty of reading and understanding module, family problem, sleep problem,
loneliness, inability to manage time.

Table 1 shows that the most cause of stress usually experience by the senior highschool student
is difficulty of reading and understanding module, second is the financial problem, and the
others are inability to manage time, sleep problem, family problem, and loneliness.

Table 2. Stress Coping Strategies use by the senior highschool student

Respondent 1: Doing something about the situation, taking action to negate stressor or the so
called active coping, and also praying/meditation.

Respondent 2: getting advice from family and friends (emotional support) and doing something
to take my mind off the situation such as watching TV, movies, and shopping.

Respondent 3: Doing something about the situation, taking action to negate stressor (active
coping)

Table 2 shows that most of stress coping strategies use by the senior highschool student are
active coping or doing something about the situation, taking action to negate stressor, and
others are getting advice from friends and family or emotional coping, and self distraction such
as watching TV and movies or go shopping.

Table 3. The effect of stress towards senior highschool student

Respondent 1: anxiety, depression

Respondent 2: nervous tension, anxiety

Respondent 3: depression, boredom, anxiety

Table 3 shows that most of the effect of stress towards senior highschool student is anxiety,
and the second one is depression, followed by anger, boredom, and nervous tension.

Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations

This study attempted to identify the stress and coping strategies among senior highschool
student. The results of the study generated the following conclusion.

1.) Table 1 shows that the most causes of stress usually experience by the senior highschool
student are difficulty of reading and understanding module, second is the financial problem and
the others are inability to manage time, sleep problem, family problem, and loneliness.

2.) Table 2 shows that most of coping strategies use by the senior highschool student are active
coping or doing something about the situation, taking action to negate stressor, and others are
emotional support or getting advice from friends and family, and self distraction such as
watching TV and movies.

3.) Table 3 shows that most of the effect of stress towards senior highschool student is anxiety,
the second one is depression, followed by anger, boredom, nervous tension.

7Recommendations

Based on the findings and conclusion from the study, the researcher recommend that the counseling
unit of the Asia college should organize stress management programs and social support group for
students. With this, supportive skills like talking and sharing could be developed. This will enable
students to feel comfortable and free enough to express their feelings.