Pangasinan State University

Bayambang Campus
Bayambang, Pangasinan

Common Causes of Stress of Junior High School Students in

Calasiao Comprehensive National High School

In partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the course Practice Teaching

By

Myra O. Prestoza
Eli Chelsy B. Mangonon
Armlyn F. de Guzman
Angelica A. dela Cruz
Michelle C. Ignacio
Vanessa A. Ferrer

April 2017

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The researchers would like to acknowledge with deep appreciation and

heartfelt gratitude the following persons for their guidance and suggestions for
the completion of this Action Research:

To their friends, who give moral support to this action research.

To their parents, who have given them moral and financial support to
make this study a successful one.

To all the respondents involved (Grade 7-10 of Calasiao Comprehensive

National High School), for their trust and for providing the necessary data to
accomplish this study.

The CCNHS principal, Engr. Magdalena C. Manaoat, Ph. D., who

accepted and approved the letter of the researchers for the conduct of the Action
Research; all Chairmans, teachers and faculty members of Calasiao
Comprehensive National High School, Calasiao, Pangasinan who are involved in
the conduct of the study.

Above all, the Almighty Creator, for bestowing His bountiful graces and
blessings to the researchers’ families and friends throughout the duration of the
Action Research. To God be the Glory!

The Researchers,

Myra
Vanessa

Angelica

Armlyn

Michelle

Eli Chelsy

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Table of Contents

Title Page………………………………………………………………………..i

Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………..…ii

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………iii

Table of Contents………………………………………………………………v

Chapter I. INTRODUCTION

1.1Background and Need of study…………………………………………...7

1.2 Importance of the study …………………………………………………..10

1.3 Statement of the Problem………………………………………………….10

1.4 Scope and Delimitation…………………………………………………….11

1.5 Definition of Terms…………………………………………………………11

Chapter II. REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

A. Related Literature and Studies…………………………………………….13

Chapter III. METHODOLOGY

A. Research Design and Data Gathering Tool………….…………….....18

Chapter IV. PROJECT RESULTS

A. Narrative of the Implementation Process………………………………….20

B. Results and Interpretation…………………………………………………...22

Chapter V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Summary…………………………………………………………………28
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B. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………28

C. Recommendations…………………………………………………………29

D. Reflections………………………………………………………………….30

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………....32

APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………33

CURRICULUM VITAE………………………………………………………37

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background and Need of the Study

In today’s modern generation, students are dealing with a lot of stress

especially they are involved into different activities in prompt without proper

preparations or orientations. Stress is viewed as a negative emotional, cognitive,

behavioral and physiological process that occurs as a person tries to adjust to or

deal with stressors (Bernstein, et al 2008). Stressors are defined as circumstances

that disrupt, or threaten to disrupt, individuals‟ daily functioning and cause

people to make adjustments (Auerbach & Grambling 1998). Regard stress as an

unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that individuals

experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening to their

well-being. Basically, students are prone to this case since they are exposed to

various experiences in varying degrees. However, stress is perceived in different

ways and may mean different thing to different individuals. It is perceived as

events or situations that cause individuals to feel tension, pressure, or negative

emotions including anxiety and anger. Moreover, other people define stress as

the response to existing situations, which includes physiological changes

(increased heart rate, and muscle tension), emotional and behavioural changes

(Bernstein, et al 2008). Stress is always regarded as a psychological process that

involves an individual‟s personal interpretation and response to any threatening

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event. It is important to note that stress can have both positive and negative

effects on people. It means that stress may be a normal, adaptive reaction to

threat. Its role is to signal and prepare individuals to take defensive action. Take

for instance, fear of things that present realistic threats motivates individuals to

deal with them or avoid them. Most psychologists assert that moderate stress

motives individuals to achieve and fuels creativity, although stress may hinder

individuals from performance on difficult tasks (Auerbach & Grambling 1998).

Auerbach and Grambling (1998) argue that stress can leads to serious problems if

it is not managed effectively. Also, when a person is exposed to chronic stress,

she or he is likely to experience both physical illness (including heart disease),

and mental illness (e.g., anxiety disorders) yet, stress can be a good thing if it is

dealt correctly. If stress is not handled correctly, that’s the time that it will be

harmful.

In today's highly competitive world, students face various academic

problems including exam stress, disinterest in attending classes, inability to

understand the subject and also in their social lives. There is the need of this

study to determine from the perspectives of the students on what areas cause

them stresses.

Academic stress is the feeling of anxiety or apprehension over one's

performance in the academic activities. It can lead to students being unable to

perform to the best of their abilities in examinations. At school there is a range of

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academic pressure feel, derived from a need for perfection, worry over grades,

parental pressure, competition, sports, or a tough class load. The nervous

breakdowns, panic attacks, burnouts, and depression are also apparent in many

younger students. Social situations can also be a source of stress for the teenagers

nowadays. They feel pressured to fit in- to be popular and to have a lot of

friends. Students, especially high school students become more independent that

they may find themselves in new and risky situations where they need to make

tough choices and also they want to try everything they see.

Some students with high stress may turn to other methods to deal with their

stress. Some examples of these methods are substance abuse (drugs/alcohol),

eating disorders (over-eating, under-eating) or even thoughts of or attempts of

suicide. Students who are unable to cope with stress may develop tension in their

lives, and if this stress is not confronted while the student is still young, the

constant stress may lead to future mental problems.

The same situation is not always stressful for all people, and all people do

not undergo the same feelings or off-putting thoughts when stressed. Students

were considered to be the future pillars who take the responsibilities to take our

country to the next phase they should be in better way. To know this, the

researchers decided to analyze of what are the causes of stress among the high

school students.

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 B. Importance of Study

This research will be beneficial to the following:

1. Researchers. This research will give necessary information about the

stressors being handled by the junior high school students.

2. Community. This research will enhance the awareness of the

community regarding the causes of the students’ behaviors in

particular area.

3. Students. This research will serve as a guide or reference for them to

strengthen their will to cope with certain challenges.

4. Future Researchers. This research will be a future reference to the other

researchers in conducting a similar study.

C. Statement of the problem

The main objective of this study is to know the common causes of stress of

junior high school students in Calasiao Comprehesive National High School. In

particular, the researchers are concern to answer the following questions:

1. What is the profile of the respondents according to age, gender and civil

status?

2. What are the stressors encountered by the students?

3. How often do high school students experience stress?

4. What is the highest stressor for high school students?

5. What grade level mostly experience stress?

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D. Scope and Delimitation

The main concern of the study is to know the common causes of stress of the

junior high school students. The subjects of this research are the 100 grade 7-10

students of Calasiao Comprehensive National High School, Calasiao,

Pangasinan; 25 each grade level coming homogeneous and heterogeneous

classes. Their ages are ranging from 13-17 years old.

E. Definition of Terms

For clarity and better understanding of this research, the following terms

were conceptually and operationally defined:

 Stress the feeling we have when under pressure.

 Stressor are the things we respond to in our environment.

 Academic stress is mental distress with respect to some anticipated

frustration associated with academic failure or even unawareness to the

possibility of such failure.

 Dating is the meeting of people as a romantic engagement is found in

societies that allow individuals to choose their own marriage partners.

 Environment is the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that

influence the life of an individual or community

 Extracurricular is a combination of the Latin prefix extra- meaning "on the

outside" and the word curriculum, meaning "a running, course, career."

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 Something that is extracurricular is on the outside of your course or

career.

 Workload is an amount of work that a person is expected to do.

 Parental issues include problems encounter by parents towards children or

vice versa.

 Chronic is long lasting and difficult to eradicate.

 Open- ended question is designed to encourage a full, meaningful answer

using the subject’s own knowledge and/or feelings. It requires more

thought and more than a simple one-word answer.

 Stress a state of mental and emotional strain or tension resulting from

adverse or very demanding circumstances.

 Stereotype a widely held but fixed and over simplified image or idea of

particular type of person or thing.

 Tension a mental or emotional strain.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents a review of related literature and studies which

are considered relevant in enriching and adding insights and important

information to the study.

A. Related Literature and Studies

Normally, student undergoes a lot of stress and strain within the school and

outside the school wherein academic stress has emerged as a significant mental

health problem in the recent years bringing anxiety about examinations due to

high expectations, fear of facing examinations and high percentage of failure in

school examinations which in turn contribute to tensions in the students leading

stress and frustration.

Omizo et.al., (1988) investigates stressors and symptoms in students and

found out that in the order of frequency, elementary students cited family

problems and school problems; junior school students cited general adolescent

problems, peer pressure and family problems; and high school students cited the

future, school problems and peer pressure. Students identified psychological,

physiological, behavioural and emotional symptoms of stress.

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The effect of school-climate and need for academic achievement on the academic

stress of students found that they did not affect academic stress independently,

but their interaction was statistically significant among the four components of

academic stress: frustration, conflict, pressure and anxiety. (Bisht,1980) . When a

student spent much time and effort on homework without showing a

corresponding level of academic performance, he/she was found to be suffering

from academic overload. (Ippolitive,1980) The excessive homework,

examinations and studying for examinations are the most significant factors that

cause academic stress.( Kohn and Fragner, 1986) The factors of academic stress

included writing term papers, test anxiety, fear of failure, competition for grades,

answering essay questions, poor study skills and habits, excessive academic load

and concentration and memory.( Edmunds,1984)n

According to Jones (1993) to establish the existence of gender-based

differences in `the perceived antecedents of academic stress, the academic

pressure scale for adolescents was administrated to 122 girls and 160 boys

attending high school. Girls reported greater stress than boys. Thus, providing

strong evidence that girls and boys of high school age experience different

antecedents of academic stress.

The four factors of stress that emerged were parental stress, place of

studying, importance of school and fear of failure. These factors were common

among students from England and in the United States. It was concluded that the

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variables, social and individual differences were the major contributing factors to

academic stress. (West Charles et.al., 1982)

According to George et.al., (1987) there is an association between the

characteristics of students and their stress levels along with the correlation of

stress due to drug addiction and health problem. While according to Widey and

Liechtenstein (1987) trauma in the family resulting in the separation or divorce of

a child’s parents caused the most severe symptoms of anxiety. Academic tasks

that students were unable to handle caused the next to most severe symptoms of

stress.

Based from the research of Pukar, Lamb and Bartolovic (1993), there are

students reported experiencing stressful events related to school, family,

friendship, health and transportation. The study is important in view of the

contribution towards understanding the stressor faced by rural adolescents;

however, lack of standardized tools to measure it keeps the scope of the findings

limited. Academic stress and quality of family support and intelligence in a

selected group of high school girl students reported no significant relationship

between them. But a significant correlation was found between academic stress

and family support. (Ramamalini, 1993)

From the study of Flanagan and Eceles (1993), the effect of change in

parental work status on early adolescents’ school adjustment before and after

transition to junior high school is based on the pattern of change or stability in

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parental work status during the two years of study, four groups were compared

– deprived, declaiming, recovering and stable. Results indicated that adolescents

in deprived and declaiming families were less competent than their peers in

stable or recovery families. Adolescents who experienced a decline in work

status were most disruptive while most students had difficulty adjusting to

junior high school. The transition was particularly difficult for those students

whose parents were simultaneously dealing with changes in work status. The 9th

and 10th class students coming from small families were better in their level of

academic stress than the students living with the big families.

Based from Wagner and Compas’ research (1990) there are roles of

gender, instrumentality and expressivities as moderators of the relation between

stressful events and psychological symptoms in samples of junior high, senior

high and college students. However, there was no indication in the samples of a

stronger relation between negative events and psychological symptoms in

adolescent women, family stressors in the junior high and peer stressors in the

college sample were most strongly related to psychological symptoms. The

differences in the type of stressors faced across the stages and the increase in

stressors faced by women are indicators of the developmental nature of the

experience of stressors and the possible difference in gender in the perception of

stressors.

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 Ranamanikham and Vasanthal (2008) conducted a study on the

relationship between students’ academic stress and adjustment in relation to

their academic achievement and found out the following: (i) there was a

significant positive correlation between academic stress and academic

achievement. (ii) The scores of the students on their academic stress gradually

increases the qualification of the parents decreased. (iii) The different sibling

groups differed significantly on the level of stress. (iv) It was found that as the

number of siblings increased, the level of stress score increased.

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REFERENCES

A. BOOKS AND PUBLISHED RESEARCHES

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APPENDIX B

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

I. Profile of the Respondent

Name (optional):_______________________
Age :_______________________
Gender :_______________________
Civil Status :_______________________

II. A. Instructions: Kindly check those events you have experienced in your
life.
Student Stress Scale (Insel and Roth, 1985)

_____1. Death of a close family member

_____2. Death of a close friend
_____3. Divorce between parents
_____4. Jail Term
_____5. Major personal injury or illness
_____6. Marriage
_____7. Fired from job
_____8. Failed important course
_____9. Change in health of a family member
_____10. Pregnancy
_____11. Sex problems
_____12. Serious argument with a close friend
_____13. Change in financial status
_____14. Change of Major
_____15. Trouble with parents
_____16. New girl or boy friend
_____17. Increased workload
_____18. Outstanding personal achievement
_____19. First quarter/semester in college
_____20. Change in living conditions
_____21. Serious argument with instructor
_____22. Lower grades than expected
_____23. Change in sleeping habits
_____24. Change in social activities
_____25. Change in eating habits

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 _____26. Chronic car trouble
_____27. Change in no. of family get-togethers
_____29. Change of college
_____30. Dropped more than one class
_____31. Minor traffic violations

B. Kindly put a check (/) in the box which corresponds to your perception
about your daily experiences as a student.

1- Always
2- Sometimes
3- Not at all

Item Problems encountered 1 2 3

(Always) (Sometimes) (Not
at all)

1 You don’t have healthy sleeping habits or

don’t get enough sleep at night

2 You feel the pressure of your teachers and

parents
3 You experience full schedule and
assignment loads without enjoyment
4 You have poor eating habits due to
academic commitments
5 You are affected to a sudden change of the
behavior of your loved ones
6 You are face with financial burden
7 You witness some disagreement at your
home which affect your way of thinking
and expressing emotion
8 You worry about the issues at your home
9 You are emotionally disturb when having
misunderstanding with your loved ones
10 You feel exhausted in joining trainings,
seminars and even sports
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11 You are traumatized to a certain family
conflict in making a mistake
12 You are pressured to fit in and have a lot
of friends
13 You encounter dating problems
14 You try your best to be popular
15 You are unsure and worried about the
future.

III. Rank the following from 1-6. 1 as the highest stressor and 6 as the lowest.

____Parental issues

 Parents want their children to succeed in school. They want to see good
grades, but they also want to see success in life’s other areas.

____Environment

 Students moving into secondary education find it challenging to constantly

move around to classes. Challenged with leaving home and establishing a
new life in a new setting.

____Workload

 Planning on tertiary studies overwork to reach their goals and benefit from
the money spent

____Dating

 Thinking about dating, dating, trying to date, failing to date, and being
“dumped

____Academics

 Requiring students to interview older students and educators, as well as

research the Internet on the subject, could help them prepare for the
stresses of academic challenges.

____Extra-curricular activities

 Engage in extracurricular activities such as choirs, clubs, sports, band, or

volunteer work

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CURRICULUM VITAE

Name: Myra O. Prestoza

Nickname: “Mhai”
INSERT 2X2 PICTURE
Age: 20

Address: Poblacion East, Bautista, Pangasinan

Civil Status: Single

Gender: Female

Birthday: February 14, 1997

Motto: “Once you have done all you can, God will do all you can’t.”

Educational Background:

Tertiary: Pangasinan State University

Bayambang Campus

Bayambang, Pangasinan

Bachelor of Secondary Education

2017

Secondary: Doyong-Malabago National High School

Calasiao, Pangasinan

2013

Primary: Doyong-Malabago National High School

Calasiao, Pangasinan

2009

Father: Rogelio C. Ferrer

Mother: Corazon C. Ferrer

Religion: Born Again Christian

Present Work: Student teacher

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