REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES AND STUDIES

In this chapter, the literatures and studies were carefully selected and deliberated upon on

the basis of relatively and reliability of the information presented. This literatures and studies

help the researchers to have an evidence and proof to their study. Also, this chapter discusses the

relevance of the study.

Foreign Literature

It is important for students to develop different coping strategies in order to encounter

and manage stressful conditions. I fit is not handled well, the stressors that originated from

financial problems, sleep deprivation, societal activities and many more can affect student’s

ability to perform.

Coping strategy refers to ways to handle stressful and troublesome circumstances. It

scientifically defined that coping as the sum of cognitive and behavioral effort, which are

constantly changing, that aim to handle particular demands, whether internal or external, that are

viewed as demanding.

Students need to develop different coping strategies for them to manage stressful

condition every day. If students were not able to manage his/her stress, the stressors coming from

financial problems, sleep deprivation, societal activities and many more can affect the ability of

students to perform.

Pargman, D. (2016), One type is about academic expectation and achievements, and the

other is about social factors, such as maintaining and developing social connections, etc. Studies

show that the mental stresses of college students come from two aspects: one is the personal
stress, including stress from family, stress from adaptability, stress from health, stress from

relationship, stress from low self- esteem, and stress from frustration. The other is the social

environmental stress, including stress from interpersonal communication, stress from occupation

choice, emotional stress, stress from college environment, and stress from study.

Many college students marked themselves as being depressed since first that makes the

reason why academic issues, loneliness, financial and difficult social relationship problems

becomes a stress encounter by those college students and 9% of those students were reported

suicidal ideation. In preferring the present study it may include the same attributes on academic

issues, loneliness, financial and social relationship problems. All of those people encounter stress

that leads to rapid bodily changing which makes feelings of emotions unrest causing the body

strains with the body part. Repeated stressful situations, may lead to cause rapid tension and

pressures that contributed to physical and psychological problems.

Stress comes from the medical dictionary that dwells on any situation which brings to

evokes negative thoughts and feeling among those persons, this means that people been

encounter stress will have different experiences in times of dealing the pressure. Stress can lead

to different outcomes. It depends on people and the way they can cope up with this. It is

important that the persons who have been influenced by the individual’s ability will effectively

adapt a kind of situations, but they may be differ in dealing with it (Segal, 2013).

(Mallow, 2015) in his research, “Science Anxiety: Research and Action”, he explained

that the Science anxiety is related to general anxiety and to field of study, but not significantly to

national group. He conducted interviews with eleven groups of Danish and American students.

The interview topics included gender and national components of science education, science
anxiety, and attitudes toward school activities. The interviews revealed a variety of relationships

between and among science attitudes, science anxiety, nationality, gender, and course of study.

Researchers investigated the effects of students’ test anxiety and teacher’s evaluation

practices on students’ achievement and motivation at post the secondary level. He found

statistically significant results which revealed that all students, especially students with high

anxiety level, performed poorly and were less motivated to learn. Thus he concluded that that

when students who are particularly test-anxious are exposed to a highly evaluative assessment,

environment in their educational institution, they perform poorly and are less motivated to

perform. A research study conducted by Cassady & Johnson (2016) “to investigate the effect of

cognitive test anxiety on students’ academic performance and found that cognitive test anxiety

exerts a significant stable and negative impact on academic performance measures”.

Albero, Brown, Eliason & Wind (2018), on the basis of their research study, concluded

that students having high test anxiety had significantly lower scores. Oludipe (2015) conducted a

study to explore how test anxiety affects students’ performance levels in the sciences, especially

in Physics, and concluded that “low test-anxious students performed better than high test-anxious

students on both numerical and non-numerical tasks in Physics”. On the other hand,

Schonwetter, (2015) by relating this phenomenon to classroom instruction, the researchers

further discussed “how high test- anxious students were unable to benefit directly from organized

instruction, which ultimately affected their performance in class”.

Most students experience stress since some are trying to cope with the demands of

adapting to a new living environment, new peers, academic pressure, and sexual concerns.

Highly competitive surroundings makes the students feel pressured. Being in college can also

put financial stress on the students and their families. These situations can leave them with

trembling hands, tense muscles, migraine, headache, and multiple other symptoms of stress

performance or reduce the student to ineffectiveness.

Based on the study of Mazo (2015) entitled, “Causes, Effects of Stress, and the Coping

Mechanism of the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Students in A Philippine

University” this study sought to determine the causes of stress, the effects of stress, and the stress

coping mechanisms of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology students in the Leyte

Normal University, Tacloban City. It tested some assumptions using the descriptive survey

method with 51 respondents. Thesis writing/research and school requirements/projects were the

most common causes of stress. Sleepless nights and irritable/moody feeling were the common

effects of stress. There was disparity on the causes and effects of stress between the male and

female respondents. The use of computer and praying to God were the common stress coping

mechanisms. There was an observed disparity between the male and female responses.

Stress can lead to different results. These are insomnia, headaches, backaches,

constipation, diarrhea, high blood pressure, heart disease, depression and alcohol, tobacco or

drug use. These effects can be negating if: one that suffer from it shares his or her knowledge to

raise awareness. Be open and talk. If your doctor prescribed medication take it exactly the way it

is prescribed. Do not stop taking your medication until you doctor tells you to stop doing so.
Keep all follow-up appointments with your doctor. Remember that it may take some time to start

feeling better and if one experience side effects from any medication, tells the doctor; and must

seek for professional counseling. If the methods of coping stress are not contributing to greater

emotional and physical health, it is time to find healthier ones. There are many healthy ways to

manage and cope with stress, but they all require change. You can either change the situation or

change your reaction. When deciding which option to choose, it is helpful to think of the four

A’s: avoid, alter, adapt, or accept. Since everyone has unique response to stress, there is no “one

size fits all” solution to managing it. No single method works for everyone or in every situation,

so experiment with different techniques and strategies. Focus on what makes you feel calm and

in control.

Based on the study entitled “Stressors and Stress Responses of Filipino College students”

Dyet. al. (2015), the study determined the stressors and stress responses of Filipino college

students in relation to sex, course and academic classification. There were 258 respondents for

the study. Of the respondents, 68% were females and 32% were males. According to their

degree, 42% belonged to the soft sciences and 58% to the hard sciences. In terms of academic

classification, 10% were freshmen, 36% sophomores, 33% juniors and 21% seniors. The top five

overall stressors of the respondents were academic difficulty of subject matter, workload due to

subjects, time management because of subjects, responsibilities due to being on one's own, and

time management because of both subjects and organizations. The most frequently occurring

stress responses were affective stress responses followed by cognitive responses. For both male

and female respondents, the top stressors were academics, workload due to subjects and time

management concerns. Overall, the males reacted to stress through affective responses and

females through cognitive responses. Students enrolled in the hard and soft sciences both
considered academics, workload due to subjects and time management concerns as their top

stressors. Those in the soft sciences reacted with cognitive stress responses while those in the

hard sciences reacted with affective stress responses. Generally, all students, regardless of their

academic classification pointed out that academics, workload due to subjects, and time

management were their main stressors. They all reacted to stress with affective stress responses.

These patterns can be monitored to maintain the psychological and physical well-being of

adolescent students.

(Meneses, 2018) argued that worry may give rise to anxiety and it is more often

imaginary than real and a generalized emotional state rather than specific one. In short, the

individual is not anxious about specific things. Worry for students relates primarily to cognitive

concerns about the consequences of failure. Students who think or verbalize a negative or

pessimistic expectation manifest worry. One of the most threatening events that may cause

anxiety among the students today is examination. When students develop an extreme fear of

performing poorly on an examination, they may experience anxiety. Test anxiety is a major

factor contributing to a variety of negative outcomes including psychological distress, academic

underachievement, academic failure, and insecurity. Although many students have the cognitive

ability to do well on examinations, they may not able to do so because of a high level of anxiety.

Researcher states that State anxiety, which was the kind of anxiety that was experienced

by most of the students, is temporary in nature and only evident in a specific situation, while trait

anxiety is an enduring characteristic of a person, a fairly stable characteristic with pervasive

effects or is evident in diverse aspects of a person’s life. The level of stress exists and may

persist for long, when it remained uncorrected one may experience the symptoms of anxiety.

Stress built up over time until it reaches a point where coping with it seems difficult. Those with
anxiety problems have a style of coping with stressful events which persistently aggravate the

problem. They make unreasonable demands and would go through kind of denial that the

problems do not exist. However, this persistent behavior of denial is indeed very stressful and

may further aggravate the situation. The level of stress exists and may persist for long, when it

remained uncorrected one may experience the symptoms of anxiety. Stress built up over time

until it reaches a point where coping with it seems difficult. Those with anxiety problems have a

style of coping with stressful events which persistently aggravate the problem. They make

unreasonable demands and would go through a kind of denial that the problems do not exist.

However, this persistent behavior of denial is indeed very stressful and may further aggravate the

situation. (Bermis, 2018)

Anxiety is universal and everyone experiences this feeling in varying degree. It is an

emotional reaction characterized by fearful anticipation of an unpleasant event in the future. Fear

is a reaction to a real external danger that threatens the person with possible injury and has no

real external stimulus but the individual himself. Anxiety is an unpleasant state that is associated

with feeling of uneasiness, apprehension, and heightened physiological arousal. According to

Freud, it arises when there is an unconscious conflict between the id’s and superego’s desire

regarding how to satisfy a need; the ego, caught in the middle, reacts by creating a feeling of

anxiety. Anxiety is differentiated into (a) State Anxiety, it is a transitory emotional reaction to

the individual’s perception of a threatening or dangerous situation, and (b) Trait Anxiety, it is a

relatively stable tendency to interpret situations as a threatening or dangerous and to react to

them with anxiety. Studies have shown that the level of anxiety of the students affect their

academic performance. (Bulatao, 2017)

Stress level varies when work is given as the challenges or threats. The pressure to

perform well in the examination makes the academic environment stressful. It is either students

will deal with it or students will let stress consume them. Students who experienced then

negative kind of stress believe that alcohol drinking, using of drugs and hanging out of friends

are their immediate solutions to their stress. (Seaward, 2017)

Depression is a serious problem. It can start from being stressed but if it is not treated, it

can lead far more serious effects like self-inflicting pain and suicide. In this study the

intrapersonal and inter factors is the problem of the college students and depressions. Most of the

time college students experience different stress that key encountered every day. They need to do

these to aim good grades and to make charges to something in order to achieve a desired result.

Depression refers to the work and stress for those people who experience. That is why

they forced them to do something better, compete with other people and most especially it is

more depressive in accomplishing some things in times of rushing hour. Stress reactions to

various situations affected the overall level of the person’s health. They felt always overwhelmed

in times of eating poorly, sleepless and overwhelmed those stressful events, which presented by

the literature and studies that deals with those related stress to the study in times of feelings and

emotions of those college students. (Hoover, 2014).

In school, students who become high achievers in their academic, have a greater

possibility to encounter stress due to their academic requirements that they need to pass.

Additionally, those students had shown a different stress coping strategies to manage their stress.

Although stress comes from being exposed to a different environment and it can therefore lead to
negative effects, stress can also help one’s state of wellbeing be improved. The importance of

psychological processes in identifying the effects if stress in our emotions, physical, health and

behavior.

The stress can be defined as the physiological response in order to become aware in

threat. Readjustments to any life changes can cause stress. Nowadays teen are facing many

challenges that parents and traditional educators did not experience when they were child or

growing up. Because of the different pressures in 21stcentury, adolescents cannot cope properly

their stress and they are recommending for some programs in school that promotes proper coping

strategy when they are stress. (Layton, 2016).

Heavy study tasks, difficult courses, unreasonable learning, ways including high

standards could be representing the stresses encountered by senior high school student. Changing

in life requires numerous readjustments that can be aware in encountering stress. One of the best

ways is to deal with it and raise awareness for the future potentials to be reduced.

When it comes to coping strategies, students tend to be engage in some activities like

listening to music, chatting, and internet surfing, playing smart phone games, and writing an

essay. They could deal with it through developing and guiding inactive leisure activity for

potential enhancement of mental health. Coping strategies can also lead to negative effects like

engagement with vandalism, bullying, smoking, drinking and undesirable activities for

adolescents. (Davidson, 2015)

Students live in a highly competitive world. Especially when one focuses on academics.

Academic performance of the student is crucial in deciding the next step of students’ life.

Students who focus highly on academic affects one’s psychological, mental an even physical
behavior because of pressure, stress and more. According to (Anoushka Takkar, 2018) from the

article The Medium, school related stresses include inadequate instructional methods, teacher-

student relationships, heavy academic workload, poor physical classroom environments. Inability

to balance one’s leisure time with school and schedules. It means that there are many factors that

can affect and make students stressed.

Local Study

Academic stressors like examinations and grades, fully loaded days, difficulty in

completing clinical requirements, and fear of getting delayed topped the identified stressors.

Academic factors were stressful in the first 3 year levels. Academic stress peaked during the

sophomore year. No significant differences in rankings were observed between genders. There

was undeniable similarity in the general stress profile of the different year levels. Common

methods of coping with stress were employed by students which include crying, praying, talking,

watching movies, and listening to music. Stress makes or breaks a person. It is like a two-edged

sword which can either motivate or stimulate a student to peak. (Sanchez, 2017)

Stress is a part of life. It is the combination of psychological, physiological, and

behavioral reactions that people have in response to events that threaten or challenge them. It

gives us our fight-or-flight mechanism and has helped the human race survive for so long. The

word “stress” was originally coined by endocrinologist, However, too much stress is unhealthy.

Stress can be good or bad. Sometimes, it is helpful, providing humans with the extra energy or

alertness they need. For example, stress could give a runner the edge he or she needs to persevere

in a marathon (Garcia, 2015). In some cases, stress can also cause health complications or
adverse effects, such as fainting in school due to pressure or panicking while reciting in front of a

crowd.

A foresaid to that by Sargunjot (2014) in her article Academic Pressure, that at school,

there is a range of academic pressure that a student feels; derived from a need for perfection,

moving over grades, parental pressure, competition, sports or a tough class load. Added to that,

Marie (2015) stated that, schools are beginning to put more and more pressure on today's

generation of school students. Difficult subjects in STEM strand is another challenge that STEM

11 encounter. These subjects are intertwining disciplines when applied in the real world. The

STEM strand subjects focus on scientific and mathematical skills as well as advanced concepts

and topics.

Students are the most essential elements in any educational institution. They are

considered as the core of learning process. Their performance plays an important role in

determining academic achievements which are associated to what people value. If students

achieve their set academic standards and successfully attained high degree of education, the

probability of being employed in the future is high. This academic performance also reflects the

quality graduates who will become great leaders and manpower for the country’s economic and

social development. Hence, having good academic standing is essential. School equips them with

the necessary knowledge, abilities, and values to deal with specific challenges they will be facing

throughout their lives. Aside from learning academics, students are allowed to progress in other

aspects and develop essential skills such as collaboration, good manners and unity through

different extra-curricular activities. But in dealing with different challenges and demands to

perform well in academics, students may feel stressful because of their inability to perform all

demands. (Santos, 2018)

among students are high expectations of parents, teachers, or even friends, academic pressure,

competition among classmates, physical set-up, limited opportunities, and ambitions (Cortez,

2017) . Students in their high school level are the ones who are going through the transitional

phase which is an intermediate of childhood and adulthood. Peer relations take on much more

importance during adolescence. It was found that most teens go through stress because of peer

pressure. The words “popularity” and “cliques” are frequently associated with this time in life.

Being accepted into desired social circles and keeping up with the ‘popular kids’ is of high

priority for many adolescents to be accepted.

Related Theories

Cognitive-relational theory defines stress as a particular relationship between the person

and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources

and endangering his or her well-being. Appraisals are determined simultaneously by perceiving

environmental demands and personal resources. They can change over time due to coping

effectiveness, altered requirements, or improvements in personal abilities. The cognitive-

relational theory of stress emphasizes the continuous, reciprocal nature of the interaction

between the person and the environment. Since its first publication (Lazarus, 2016), it has not

only been further developed and refined, but it has also been expanded recently to a meta-

theoretical concept of emotion and coping processes.

Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman (2016) stated that stress can be thought of as

resulting from an “imbalance between demands and resources.’’ or as occurring when “pressure

exceeds one’s perceived ability to cope.” Stress management was developed and premised on the
idea that stress is not a direct response to a stressor but rather one’s resources and ability to cope

mediate the stress response and are amenable to change, thus allowing stress to be controllable.

Lazarus further stated that in order to develop an effective stress management program it is first

necessary to identify the factors that are central to a person controlling his/her stress, and to

identify the intervention methods, which effectively target these factors. He further stated that

Lazarus and Folkman’s interpretation of stress focuses on the transaction between people and

their external environment known as the transactional model. The stressful situation that the

administrative staff of tertiary institutions is assumed to pass through does not necessarily mean

the presence of a potential stressor but rather their resources and ability to reduce the stress

response. The models conceptualize stress as a result of how a stressor is appraised and how a

person appraises his or her resource to cope with the stressor. The model breaks the stressor-

stress link by proposing that if stressors are perceived as positive or challenging rather than as a

threat, and if the stressed person is confident that he or she possesses adequate rather than

deficient coping strategies, stress may not necessarily follow the presence of a potential stressor.

The model proposes that stress can be reduced by helping stressed people change their

perceptions of stressors, providing them with strategies to help them cope and further improving

their confidence in their ability to do so. Therefore, if the experts can provide the administrative

staff with adequate knowledge of stress management strategies, and them have a positive

perception towards the potential stressors they will see stress as a challenge and not a threat.

The health realization or innate health model of stress is also found on the idea that stress

does not necessarily follow the presence of a potential stressor (Ogaden, 2018). He stated that

instead of focusing on the individual’s appraisal of so-called stressors in relation to his or her

coping skills (as transactional model does), the health realization model focuses on the nature of
thought, stating that it is ultimately a person’s thought processes that determine the response to

potentially stressful external circumstances. The thought or the mindset of the administrative

staff here determines whether an invent is stressful or not. This model focuses on the types of

thought people (including the administrative staff) have towards the possible stressors. In this

model, stress results from appraising oneself and one’s circumstances through a mental filter of

insecurity and negativity, where as a feeling of well being result from approaching the world

with a quite mind, inner wisdom and common sense. Therefore, if the administrative staff should

joy over their work, overlook those things termed as stressors these will be of help and would

serve as management strategies for them.

Relevance of the study

The literatures and studies are relevant to present the study wherein the stress coping

mechanism among Grade 11 STEM students are further discussed and give support to the present

study to form an idea or concrete evidences. Information coming from the literatures and studies

will help to answer the research questions.

The gathered information on online sources, journals and books serves as support

evidences and answer the specific research questions. Based on the literatures and studies, most

of the authors discussed that stress is defined as a threat of the students and it makes them feel

depress that cause health diseases. As a kind of depression wherein mostly experience by the

students that makes the reason how student can manage their stress by finding different ways in

order to overcome the stress wherein student must need to develop different coping strategies to

manage a kind of stressful condition in everyday life. Focusing things into perspective, having
pleasure when doing hobbies and enjoy services are secrets to combat stress. Stress produces

headache, neck crick that causes many health problems like depression, anxiety, heart diseases

and stroke.
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