Enhancing Stress Coping Skills among College Students

Abstract

ABSTRACTStress exists in every part of our life. The prevalence of stress is increasing among students in recent years. This is due to various factors such as increased pressure, competition, decreased resources, inadequate family support, exposed to violence through media and increased use of alcohol as well as drugs. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a difficult journey filled with various risk, rapid changes, and seemingly endless choices. Coping skills can help the youth to navigate through these challenges. These would help students to be self-reliant, solve problems and make informed choices, which in turn promote their physical and psychological well-being. to ascertain the efficacy of a stress coping programme as a means for decreasing perceived stress and increasing the proactive attitude towards stress. This study adopted quasi-experimental design. Forty-four under graduate computer science students were assigned to control group and forty-four students were assigned to experimental group. A training module was developed to promote proactive coping strategies and general self-efficacy and utilized as an experimental intervention. From the result, it is found that the developed training is effective in enhancing proactive coping and general self-efficacy of college students.Keywords: Coping skills, Proactive coping, general self-efficacyINTRODUCTION:The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a difficult journey filled with various risk, rapid changes, and seemingly endless choices. Lake of awareness about the nature of stress and the lack of coping skills makes the situation more volatile. Coping skills can help the youth to navigate these challenges. Also, these skills help students to be self-reliant, solve problems and make informed choices, which in turn promote their physical and psychological well-being. They enable students to deal with the life events, challenges and stresses in their day-to-day activities, without resorting to health risk-taking behaviours. Students who possess a strong sense of their effectiveness and the ability to cope with the circumstances in their lives are likely to be more successful in their academic as well as in their social life. Hence, reducing negative behaviour and emotional problems of students especially at the college level is essential to foster adjustment and proactive behaviour among young generation, and this assumes paramount importance especially in the technology based society.PROACTIVE COPING:Proactive coping refers to efforts undertaken in advance of a potentially stressful event to prevent it or to modify its form before it occurs (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997). Proactive coping is distinguished from other coping forms, since it incorporates and utilizes social and non-social resources. It employs vision of success and uses positive emotional strategies. Proactive coping includes goal setting and tenacious goal pursuit. According to Schwarzer (2000), there are four types of coping; reactive, anticipatory, preventive and proactive coping. The distinction between these four perspectives of coping is advantageous because it moves the focus away from mere responses to negative events toward a broader range of risk and goal management, which includes the active creation of opportunities and the positive experience of stress (Schwarzer & Taubert, 2002; Schwarzer & Knoll, 2003).GENERAL SELF-EFFICACYPerceived competence becomes crucial when we are confronting with stressful situations. Self-efficacy makes a difference in how people feel, think and act (Bandura, 1997). Efficacious people are able to persevere in the face of challenges because they believe that they can change situations and behaviours to produce a more positive outcome. A strong sense of competence facilitates cognitive processes and academic performance. Self-efficacy levels can enhance or impede the motivation to act. Individuals with high selfefficacy choose to perform tasks that are more challenging. …

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