Stress and Coping Mechanism: How Students of San

Miguel National High School Cope Towards Academic

Distress

A Research Proposal

Submitted to

Mrs. Janice P. Bernal

By

David Harvey C. Candaza

2023
I. Introduction

A lot of people believe that stress is harmful, but it is not always as bad as people believe.
According to the World Health Organization (2023), stress is a natural human response to
address the threats they face. The 2 types of stress are eustress and distress; people who feel
overwhelmed and anxious are experiencing distress (Shafir, 2020). The activity or tasks that are
done to lessen or manage stress are called coping (Algorani & Gupta, 2022). Distress from here
on shall be referred to as "stress" for the sake of shortening.

This study revolves around the nature of students’ behavior when it comes to stressful
situations in school. The way they cope to address the stressors that may have caused them
physical, emotional, or mental stress, as well as attempt to find a coping pattern that is the most
efficient way.

          Even students cannot escape stress. According to Thakkar (2018), an increasing amount of
stress can cause students to become affected by physical and psychological problems, which can
later affect their academic performance. So it is essential for students to utilize their ability to
cope by doing their favorite thing or the thing that calms them.

There are many ways a student can cope if they are stressed. This research is being
conducted to determine how students cope and also to find underlying patterns of coping towards
academic stress. Then, this study will analyze those patterns.

Coping during stressful situations is essential; however, what is not yet known from
previous research is if there is an unnoticed pattern of coping lying beneath to combat the stress
involved in academics that could be uncovered. This study is essential for further studying the
human conscious and unconscious behavior and their psychological nature when they are
experiencing this kind of stress. To address this gap, this study will examine and analyze the gap
to make sure that it is filled. The researcher aims to gather useful information that could help fill
the gap and contribute to the field of human psychological behavior.
II. Statement of the problem

The goal of this research is to identify the coping mechanisms of students who are
subjected to academic stress. This specifically answers the following questions:

1.) What are the academic stressors the students of San Miguel National High School face?

2.) How do the students of San Miguel National High School cope with the academic stress they
are put under?

3.) Are the students’ ways of coping harmful, beneficial, or not?

III. Objectives

Students are experiencing academic stress most of the time especially when they are
expected to excel. The main objective of this study is:

 to find out the coping mechanism of these students;

 to find out how are they able to get past these stressful situations with the given coping
activities;
 to identify if a certain activity is beneficial or not in the long-term;
 and to help students become more aware of academic stress and coping mechanism.

IV. Scope and Delimitation

This study aims to identify how students cope with the distress put upon them by their
schooling. The study will be conducted in San Miguel National High School, San Miguel, Leyte,
from the school year 2022-2023. This study will only include the senior high school students
since the curriculum of the senior high school department is different from the junior high school
department. The academic tracks STEM and HUMSS are only included because they are the
available tracks here at San Miguel National High School.
V. Significance of the study

Students. This study will be essential for students since they are the ones who are
experiencing this phenomenon and are involved in this kind of stress and coping. This study can
aid them in improving their awareness towards better practices in effective coping.

Teachers. This research can help teachers realize what kind of academic stress their students are
experiencing and how well the students are adapting to this kind of environment, which allow
teachers to grant the assistance needed by the students for their mental health.

Future Researchers. Future researchers will benefit from the results of this study. It will allow
them to develop their own research that is different but has the same concept as this. It will help
them discover more about the human psychological behavior under stressful conditions.
 Methodology

I. Research Design

This research is a qualitative type of research. A qualitative research pertains to the

collection and analysis of non-numerical information used to understand opinionated ideas,
concepts, understandings, and experiences (Bhandari, 2023). Specifically, this qualitative study
is a phenomenology type because it tackles around human experiences related to a phenomenon.

II. Research Participants

` This study includes a total of 25 Senior high school participants that are going to be
interviewed about their academic situation and their coping mechanisms. The participants of this
study are random and are voluntarily chosen based off of their availability and willingness to
cooperate.

III. Research instrument

The data were gathered using an interview with at least 4-5 questions regarding the
academic stress and coping of students. The interview guide question will help the researcher
acquire the experiences, opinions, and ideas of the participants. Then, the data gathered are
synthesized to get a general understanding of the phenomenon.

IV. Ethical consideration

A consent form is utilized to allow the researcher to interview participants; sensitive data
is kept hidden and safeguarded; and finally, individuals were not forced into participating in this
study in order to verify that there are no ethical problems.
 References

Algorani, EB & Gupta, V. (2022, April 28). Coping Mechanisms. StatPearls Publishing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559031/

Bhandari, P. (2023, January 30). What is Qualitative Research? Scribbr.

https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/qualitative-research/

Shafir, H. (2020, November 11). Eustress vs Distress: Positive & Negative Types of Stress.
Choosing Therapy. https://www.choosingtheraphy.com/eustress-vs-distress/

Stress. (2023, February 21). World Health Organization.

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/stress#:~:text=What%20is
%20stress%3F,experiences%20stress%20some%20degree

Thakkar, A. (2018, April 6). Academic Stress in Students. One Future Collective.
https://medium.com/one-future/academic-stress-in-students-498c34f064d7