Post II - Annotated Bibliography

The amount of stress that college students face can sometimes be unbearable to a point of anxiety, exhaustion, or even depression. College is a time to have fun but also get your priorities straight and mature into a young adult. A basic lesson that most college students must learn within their first semester at school is how to cope with stress. In order to truly enjoy your time at a University, you can’t let stress take over your life and ruin your time, because you can never live these four years over again.

I found an interesting study about enhancing stress coping skills amongst undergrads that can make a great contribution to this blog.

Kadhiravan, S., & Kumar, K. (2012). ENHANCING STRESS COPING SKILLS AMONG    COLLEGE STUDENTS. Researchers World,3(4), 49-55. Retrieved from          http://search.proquest.com/docview/1285124811?accountid=14749

In this experiment, Kadhiravan and Kumar took 88 undergrads majoring in computer science and divided them in half for a control group and experimental group.  The researchers then created a training program for these undergrads to test them in the following categories’: proactive coping and general self-efficacy. Proactive coping is efforts taken in advance to deal with potential stressful situations, while general self-efficacy is using motivation to overcome stress to a point of achieving your goals.

The data from each training program was collected on three different scales.  Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI) and General Self-efficacy Scale (GSE). The training program dealt with several different topics dealing with improvement of individual coping, communication skills, coping skills, problem-solving skills. The finding showed that students who participated in the coping skills training greatly differed from the control group in proactive coping, reflective coping, and preventive coping and perceived self-efficacy. Essentially, people who deal with proactive coping are better able to deal with future stressors.

This study will be useful when assessing the techniques to counteract stress amongst college students. Even though the experiment only used computer science students, I bet these results would be accurate amongst most of the student body. Basically procrastination can lead to the most stressful situations once it comes down to grind time. If you plan accordingly to when your assignments are due, that can be less stressful. Most students think that studying earlier would use up more of their time but does it’s benefits outweigh staying in as few more nights to study?

I look forward to exploring more ways to achieve a healthy college balance in the coming weeks.