The Structural Relationships between Objective Academic Pressures, Perceived Academic Stress, Coping Styles, and Responses to Stressors in High School Students

One of the most stressful issues for adolescents and young individuals is university entrance exams. Adolescents and young adults often consider academic stress as the most significant stress in their lives. Empirical evidence suggested that response to stressful academic experiences and related outcomes varies among students. Given the importance of the patterns of responding to academic stress, students need to be aware of the skills that help them cope with the stress caused by the study, entrance exam, and competition to adapt to stressful situations. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the relationship between academic–objective pressures, perceived academic stress, stress–related coping styles, and reaction to academic stress of the final year among high school students.

This was a descriptive, cross–sectional, and correlational study. The statistical population of this study included all male and female students studying in the last year of high school and applicants who entered the university in the academic year of 2019–2020 in Kermanshah City, Iran. Sampling was performed in a multi–step manner. A sample of 240 students (120 girls & 120 boys) was selected according to the conceptual model of the study; to increase the statistical power and manage the possible decline of participants, the sample size of 240 individuals was determined. The inclusion criteria of this study included the age of 17 to 20 years and being in the 12th grade of high school and applying for the university entrance exam, )according to the participants, they had no history of physical or mental illnesses). The exclusion criterion of the study included not answering all the questions of the questionnaires. In this study, to measure objective academic pressures, the objective stress variables related to the Student–Life Stress Inventory (Godzella & Masten, 1998) were considered. Moreover, to measure perceived academic stress and response pattern to academic stress, the Student–Life Stress Inventory (Godzella & Masten, 1998) was applied. To measure the preferred styles of coping with stress, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations–Short Form (Endler and Parker, 1990) was used. Pearson correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling were used in SPSS and AMOS to analyze the research data at the significance level of 0.05.

The obtained results revealed the total effect coefficient (the total coefficient of direct & indirect paths) between objective academic pressures in response to academic stress was positive and significant (β=0.48, p<0.001,). A direct path coefficient between objective academic pressures to perceived academic stress (β=0.64, p<0.001), and perceived academic stress to respond to academic stressors (β=0.61, p<0.001) was positive and significant. The coefficient of a direct path between perceived academic stress to coping styles (β=–0.38, p<0.001) and coping styles to respond to academic stress (β=–0.39, p<0.001) was negative and significant. The indirect path coefficient between objective academic pressures to respond to academic stressors (β=0.32, p<0.001) and the indirect path coefficient between objective academic pressures to coping styles (β=0.14, p<0.001) were significant. Indirect path coefficient between perceived academic stress to respond to academic stressors (β=–0.33, p<0.001) was significant. Accordingly, perceived academic stress and coping styles mediated the relationship between objective academic pressures and responses to academic stressors. The calculated goodness–of–fit indicators indicated that academic stress and perceived coping styles mediate the relationship between academic pressures and responses to academic stresses (RMSEA=0.068, AGFI=0.91).

Based on the present research findings, objective academic pressures and reactions to academic stressors among students in the face of subjective and objective stressful experiences can be explained through perceived academic stress and coping styles concerning stressful events.