Academic stress in university students: Differences according to resilience and coping strategies

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze whether there are significant differences
in the experience of academic stress according to the resilient capacity and the type
of coping presented by university students. The sample consisted of 200 university
students, women and men residing in Argentina, who were studying from the first
to the seventh year of study in different careers. The students were selected through
a non-probabilistic convenience sampling. A Sociodemographic Questionnaire, the
Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale, the Argentine Adaptation of the Moos Coping
Response Inventory (CRI-A) for adults, adapted by Mikulic, and the SISCO Macías Academic Stress Inventory were administered. Descriptive analyses were initially
carried out. Subsequently, two factorial MANOVAs (Scheffé multivariate analysis
of variance with post hoc contrasts) were used. In the first, resilience factors were
introduced as independent variables, and in the second, coping factors. In turn, the
main results found were that there are no statistically significant differences in experiencing academic stress based on the dimensions of “flexibility and dynamism,”
and “self-confidence and independence.” However, it was possible to identify a trend
towards significance in the “perseverance and sense of achievement” dimension.
On the other hand, academic stress scores decrease as the values of the approach strategy increase, and they rise as avoidance increases. In conclusion, the functional resolution of problems would be a protective factor for academic stress. In contrast, the tendency to avoid problem-solving would be a risk factor for the perception of stress
in university students. On the other hand, the capacity for perseverance and sense of
achievement could become a stress buffer, to be tested in future studies.