Authors : Anupama K, Anupama K, Sarada D, Sarada D
DOI : 10.18231/2455-8451.2018.0042
Volume : 4
Issue : 4
Year : 0
Page No : 175-179
Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension caused by the acts of others, situations and tasks which demand a performance beyond a person’s capability or capacity. The children are compelled to spend more hours in schools on all six days a week in Andhra Pradesh, some private schools conduct special classes on Sundays and public holidays. The long hours of schooling, with less scope for; play, sports, recreation, socialization, hobbies and travel, is causing more stress among school children. This study was an exploratory research designed to assess the levels of academic stress among the adolescent boys and girls aged between 14 to 15 years and studying 10th class in Tirupati Municipality. The sample consisted of 240 children of which 120 were boys and 120 were girls. The Academic stress scale consisting of fourty items representing five stressor domains namely; Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral, Physical and Social was developed, standardized and administered.
The findings showed that the adolescent girls and boys perceived high (57.9%) to very high (40%) levels of academic stress. There was significant difference between boys and girls in their academic stress in cognitive domain at 0.05 level (t=2.311*and p=0.022) and the girls had stress levels (31.71 ±3.67) higher than boys (30.45± 4.70) in this domain. The boys and girls also differed significantly in their physical stress at 0.05 level (t=2.213* and p=0.028) and boys had higher levels (28.23 ± 4.86) of physical stress when compared to the girls (26.86 ± 4.76). Among the five stressor domains, statistically significant association was found between gender and behavioural domain of academic stress at 0.01 level (? 2=9.903** and p=0.007).There was no association found between gender and Cognitive, Affective, Physical and Social domains. The findings of the study indicates the need for intervention programmes for High school children in stress management and also stresses the need to revisit and revamp our examination system to provide a stress free learning environment to promote mental and general health of school children