Francisco “Kiko” Manlises Calingag High School: An Ethnographic Study on

Strategies to Lessen Academic Stress among Selected Junior High School Students

S. Y 2024-2025

A Qualitative Research Paper

Presented to the Faculty of Senior High School
FRANCISCO “KIKO” MANLISES CALINGAG HIGH SCHOOL
Calingag, Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in

PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1

Submitted by:
Lolong, Zendrix
Sapul, Babylyn C.
Ozar, Ivan Rey E.

MAUREEN M DECHAVEZ
Research Adviser
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Academic stress is a common problem for junior high school students that can affect

their academic performance. Students are facing different factors in terms of their academics

such as assignments, projects, recitations, examinations, quizzes, and many more. This kind

of stress may affect their academic performance. They often struggle to focus and push their

limits to submit work on time to avoid failing... For some students, stress almost becomes a

part of living. However, it is dangerous to let stress become a student’s way of living in Junior

High School because some stress levels can lead to terrible effects that completely change

students’ lives and may result in failure. Stress is inevitable and unfortunately, it produces

headaches, and neck cricks and causes many health problems that include depression,

anxiety, heart disease, and stroke (Clark, 2013).

However, stress is necessary to challenge students to learn. Therefore, students need

to create coping strategies for their stress for them to reduce the negative effects on their

learning and performance. Approaches are needed to reduce the negative aspects of stress

which hinder/hamper students' learning and performance. The key to reducing distress is

providing students with a feeling of control over their education, information about what to

expect, and feedback regarding what can be done to improve their performance. Stress is the

"wear and tear" of student’s bodies caused by frequently changing environments. It has

physical and emotional effects. It can create positive or negative feelings. The positive

influence of stress can help and compel them to action; it can result in a new awareness and

an exciting new perspective. Negative influence can result in feelings of distrust, rejection,
anger, and depression, and lead to health problems such as headaches, high blood pressure,

heart disease, and stroke. Stress can help or hinder us depending on how we react to it.

External factors include the physical environment, their relationships with others,

their home, and all the situations, challenges, difficulties, and expectations they're confronted

with daily. Internal factors determine the body's ability to respond to, and deal with, external

stress-inducing factors. Internal factors influence the ability to handle stress including the

nutritional status, overall health and fitness levels, emotional well-being, and the amount of

sleep and rest they get. Students experience great amounts of stress, whether teenagers

or Senior High School age, in the family or among their peers.

Dwyer, A. L., & Cummings, A. L. (2001) stated that for a student, stress may be

caused by a failure problem or the loss of a family member or close friend. Such events that

bring stress are called stressors. A sudden change in life or stressors may affect one’s lifestyle

or even his/her physical and mental health. The impact a stressor leaves on a person depends

on how the person takes the tension. It is hoped that the result of this study will help students

and teachers alike become aware of the causes of stress in academic performance.

Statement of the Problem

Academic stress can hurt student’s mental and physical health. The following
questions should be answered in this study:
1. What is academic stress?
2. What causes academic stress?
3. How does academic stress affect their academic performance?

Significance of the Study

 This study will show what academic stress is and the possible ways to fight it. After

this study, students will be able to know what causes academic stress. The findings of this

study will help others to know what could be the ways to fight or lessen academic stress. This

research study will provide knowledge to teachers about how they can help their students

improve their academic performance by lessening their stressors

Scope and Delmitation

This study is to focus on strategies for surviving academic stress among selected students in

Francisco "KIKO" Manlises Calingag High School.

This study covers the techniques and ways of how students fight or what they do to lessen
academic stress.

This study aims to conduct a survey of twenty selected students, honestly present and
provide the right information about the student’s answers, and, if possible, share or promote
their strategies to others who are struggling with academic stress.

Delimitation
This study does not cover other students’ opinions; it only covers the selected students and
students' answers that are not connected to the study.

This study has excluded the following problems: other problems that are not the cause of
academic stress, etc.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Review of Related Literature

Foreign Literature

“Stress is the biological and psychological response of the body to a

stimulus (stressor) caused by an event, object, or person”, while, “anxiety

is a state of agitation characterized by the anticipation of danger in which

cognitive and physiological symptoms predominate” (Sierra, 2003).

Anxiety can be a manifestation of stress and can also act as a stressor on

the subject (Folkman, 2013; Owczarek et al., 2020). In psychology, a

subject’s adaptive response determines their ability to predict upcoming

stressful events and achieve self-control over the situation to cope with it

adequately (Maturana & Vargas, 2015).

Stress and anxiety are present in daily life, and students are not

exempt from experiencing these emotional states. Academic stress is “an

adaptive systemic process, essentially psychological, on the part of

students in school environments, to demands that in the subject’s

assessment are considered stressful” (Toribio & Franco, 2016). Students

at all educational levels deal with academic tasks that could generate

stress during the teaching and learning process, such as presentations,

exams, and math exercises.

Feelings of stress and anxiety are so prevalent that they have

become normalized in students’ lives and, as a consequence, negatively

affect academic performance (Baird, 2016; Wang et al., 2014). There

exists a need to study the effects and consequences of stress and anxiety
on students’ emotional state and academic performance (Berrío-García &

Mazo-Zea, 2011).

In some subjects, the stress students are subjected to can serve as

a driver to improve their results; however, performance in other subjects

is negatively affected by stress (Leppavirta, 2011). Those who cannot

adequately manage their stress response tend to show deficiencies in

their grades and, in some cases, drop out (Corsini et al., 2012; Reyes-

Carmona et al., 2017). For this reason, educational institutions must have

tools and protocols to identify and manage the impact of stress on

students and thus reduce the adverse effects on their academic

performance.

Local Literature

Managing stress with coping strategies can be helpful for students

in dealing with both physical and psychological problems and challenges

during the learning process. Mujahidah & Astuti (2019) define the coping

strategy as a method that can be implemented in controlling any

emerging phenomena deemed as problems and challenges. Therefore,

students with a good coping strategy tend not to suffer from learning

stress and vice versa (Pascoe et al., 2020).

It reduces the academic performance of the students and hinders

their ability to study effectively and manage better time if academic

stress is severe (Khan, 2018). Moreover, according to Cruz (2019), most

students have trouble dealing with teachers, completing requirements,

and having cheating classmates because of academic stress, anxiety,

nervousness, digestive problems, constant worries, pressure, and neck

pain, are the symptoms of the stress of people at school (Agolla &

Ogori,2009). Students are also prone to depression and headaches

(Bhargava & Trived,2018).

Conceptual Framework

CAUSE EFFECT

Heavy workload Anxiety

Lack of support Depression

Transitions ACADEMIC STRESS Poor academic performance

Fear of failure Burnout

Sleep deprivation

Definition of Terms

Academic stress- Academic stress is the mental and physical distress that

students experience when they are overwhelmed by academic demands.

It can impact a student's motivation, performance, and overall well-being.

Stressor- A stressor is an event or situation that causes a stress response

in the body. Stressors can be financial, social, or occupational, or related

to life changes.
"Wear and tear"- part of our life, we can't avoid and will make us

stronger.