CHAPTER l

INTRODUCTION

RATIONALE

Stress is a feeling or body reaction comes maybe positive or negative. Negative in a way

that it could trigger much bigger problem causing people to be depressed. Positively, some

stress can be helpful because it helps a person overcome such problems or fear of something.

In fact, a little stress heightens alertness and improves performance to complete the task.

In life, stress is unavoidable because everyone exposed on it in an uncomfortable

situation that affects their sense of well-being and quality of our life. It could also affect the

decisions one makes in everyday life and influence the social interaction with others. It may be

the reason why depression occurs and also is uncomfortable reactions of our mind whenever

we are problematic, tired, or lonely (Centre 2010).

For many young adults, school is the best time of life. These critical years can also be

undermined by depression, anxiety, and stress. Students are very likely to experience some or

many stressors which may test their ability to cope: adapting to a new environment, balancing a

heavy workload, making a new friend, becoming more independent and dealing with others.

Additionally, adolescence is a stage of human development that occurs between childhood and

adulthood. Due to fastphysical and mental development at this stage, students may experience

incompatibility of their mental development with their physical changes or with the social

environment and then suffer from problem arising from inadequate adaptations (M. Maajida A...

V., et. 2018).

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 This study is intended to educate the students with an awarenes on the influences or

effects they might get from dealing with stressors. Additionally, this may enlighten the minds of

the people that surround them to minimize the stresses they cause to students.

Significance of the study

This study will be significant to the following:

Students- they might learn how to handle stresses rationally while attending school and
come up with good academic performances.
Teacher-they may be able to find strategies or techniques that will be effective on not
causing any emotional factors and mental tensions to students.
Administrators- they may be able to find better ways and create programs in school
that deal with coping stresses among students.
Parents-they may be able to learn how to property manage their expectations toward
their children's academic performances, without causing any negative feelings and thoughts to
them,
Future researchers- this might give them definite information on how may the students
react to different kinds of school stressors, thus they might be able to use it as basis for their
future researches.

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of stress and depression to

academic performance of students. This study was designed to decipher whether students with

stress and depression symptoms may prevent lower academic performance and the school will

serve better their students experiencing stress and depression.

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Research Questions

1.What are the factors causing stress to students?

2.How students able to manage to handle their stress and depression?

3.How teachers approach to students has symptoms of stress and depression?

4.What is the academic performance of the respondents?

Theoretical Lens

Positive psychology is a broad scientific discipline that focuses on exploring factors that

facilitate well-being and resilience (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000), with grit and growth

mindset as central notions. Resilience is referred to “as any response to academic or social

demands that is positive and beneficial to development, such as seeking new strategies or

putting forth greater effort” (Yeager and Dweck 2012, p. 303). In the context of external

adversities, resilience might relate to the ability to dealing with distress and lack of control

(Fletcher and Sarkar 2012). Depression is a condition that is marked by sadness, emptiness,

hopelessness, and loss of interest for most of the day (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Other indicators can include: significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or hypersomnia,

fatigue/loss of energy, psychomotor agitation or retardation, feeling worthless, excessive guilt,

inability to concentrate, thoughts of death, and suicide ideation (American Psychiatric

Association, 2013).

Scope and Delimitation

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 This study focused on the students depression cause by academic stress and how

students manage their stress and depression. In this research the students are involved and

collecting ideas from them about how academic stress affecting them.

Definition of Terms

The following terms are defined for clear understanding of the study:

Stress - “the state manifested by a specific syndrome which consists of all the

nonspecifically induced changes within the biological system” (Selye, 1956)

Stressor - “the cause of wear and tear” (Jones, 2001), “the source of arousal to the

organism” (Robert-McComb, 2001).

Eustress - type of stress causing challenging situations, resulting in self-esteem, pride,

and a greater ability to cope (Suedfeld, 1997).

Distress - type of stress leading to orgasmic breakdown (Suedfeld, 1997).

Depression - A syndrome composed of having a “dysphoric mood” that entails feeling

sad, hopeless, being irritable, and having a loss of interest and/or pleasure (Angst &

Dobler-Mikola, 1984).

Organization of the Study

Chapter 1 focuses on introduction in which the rationale explain the background of the

study, purpose of the study, research questions, theoretical lens, significance of the study,

definition of terms, scope and delimitation and organization of the study of the study whereby

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the implication for practice, implication for further research and concluding remarks will be

delineated.