Assessing the Strategies for Coping with Academic Stress among the Undergraduate Students of TNAU

Aims: College students experience stress from many different sources that ultimately have an impact on their academics. To cope with the academic stress, it is needed for them to undertake appropriate coping strategies. This study aimed to identify the extent of various strategies used among the students to cope with the academic stress and to compare coping strategies used by the male and female students.

Study Design: Ex post facto research design was used in this study.

Place and Duration of Study: Study area: Four Constituent colleges of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University viz., Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy and Killikulam. Sample: Third-year B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture Undergraduate degree programme students.

Methodology: Sample: 180 students (90 male and 90 female) from the four colleges were chosen based on employing proportionate random sampling. The coping strategies were classified into five categories namely relaxation, social support, personal, diet and exercise and psychological strategies The most preferred coping strategies were identified by computing mean scores and Mann Whitney U - test was employed to find the gender difference in terms of major stress coping strategies.

Results: The findings from the study showed that listening to music, seeking out friends for conversation, consulting with parents and relatives, using past experience to handle problems, getting enough sleep, look at the bright side of the things with mean scores of 2.48, 2.3, 2.29, 2.37, 1.99 and 2.35 respectively. There also existed a significant difference between male and female undergraduate students concerning relaxation and personal strategies at a 1% significance level.

Conclusion: It could be concluded that the students should regularly be encouraged and motivated to get involved and take up better-suited and also scientifically approved coping strategies to handle and get relieved from their academic stress.