Factors Affecting Academic Stress and Adolescent Distress: The Experiences of 12th Grade Students of Lahore City

Abstract

In this era academic stress and distress is a major problem for adolescence with the advancement of technology and science everyone wants to reach the peak of success. As a result they experienced high level of stress which has drastically impact on their emotional and cognitive state. The focus of the study to investigate the factors affecting academic stress and adolescent distress: the experiences of 12th grade students of Lahore city. In this study quantitative method was used and data was collected through survey. In the survey the problem was assessed with the use of scales that measured factors of educational stress, depression and anxiety for adolescent. The population of the study was comprised of 193 private and government colleges of Lahore city. Convenient sampling was used and the sample was consisted of 10 colleges of Lahore city in out of were 6 government and 4 were private colleges. The study was conducted 335 12th grade students. The data was analyzed by independent t-test, one way ANOVA and Pearson r. These results showed that workload, worry about grades, and perception towards examination system and self-aspiration are the main factors of academic stress and also found that significance mean difference of depression and anxiety of female and male students. It also concluded that there is an effect of program on 12th grade students’ study pressure and shows that pre-medical and pre-engineering students have high study pressure than commerce students and also found a relationship between factors of academic stress and depression as well as anxiety.   Key words:  Academic Stress, Adolescent Distress, Anxiety, Depression