Conceptual Framework

Level of stress of students Academic Performance

Fig.1 Research Paradigm

As reflected in the paradigm above, this study aims to find out the relationship between the
Level of stress of students and their Academic performance. Level of stress of students which is
found in the first box is treated as independent variable. The independent variable is measured
in terms of perceived stress scale. On the other hand, the dependent variable in this study will
be measured in terms of their Academic performance scale . Lastly, the line connecting the
independent and dependent variable shows that the study would like to further assess the
relationship between Level of stress of students and their Academic performance.
 Theoretical Framework
The James-Lange theory of emotion suggest that physical changes in the body happen
first which then leads to the experience of emotion. This theory is all about the emotional
responses that depends on how the body reacts and is perceived. James-Lange believed that
while it was possible to imagine feeling an emotion like fear or anger , your imagined version of
the emotion would be a facsimile of the real feelings because without the psychological actual
response that they believed precipitated the emotions, it would be impossible to experience
these emotions “on demand ” in other words physical reaction needs to be presented in order
to actually experience real emotion. This theory is connected to our study because it clarifies
that some stressors are caused by physical changes that leads to stress.

Definition of terms
Level of stress– is the independent variable of this study and it is measured in terms of
students attributes.

Academic performance– is the dependent variable and it is measured in terms of students

average in this first semester.

Statement of the Problem

 The present study aims to explore the perceived stress among senior high school students
and their Level of academic performance. More so, the study would like to explore the
relationship between perceived stress among senior high school students and their academic
performance.

Specifically, it would like to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of stress of the students?

2. What is the students level of academic performance?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the perceived stress among senior high
school students and their academic performance?

Hypothesis

Ha: There is a significant relationship between perceived stress among senior high
school students and their academic performance.

Significance of the study

The findings of this study should be informative insightful and significance by the
following recipients:

1. Students
May be useful to be aware of their stress level. Their awareness may motivate
them to find a way to overcome stressors.

2. Teachers
May be useful because they will be given s idea who among their, in this way
teachers can identify students who need help the most.

3. Parents
 Way they can be given idea when should they monitor their children and what
assistance can they provide.

4. Peers
They will also benefit because they give some friendly advice that can motivate
their friend according to certain problem

5. School
Through this research school can also benefit because they can make a program
related to stress and by that they can share some sort of advice and how to manage
stress.

Scope and Delimitation

This paper is focused on studying the level of stress of students and their academic
performance in Rufo Dela Cruz Integrated School, particularly the senior high school students of
grade 11 and 12 enrolled during school year 2022-2023.

Chapter 2
 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This section present the literature to the new study. The literature is presented in themes

Level of stress
Stress is a normal reaction of our body but can become upsets our day to day
functioning, this studies use a thematic approach. The independent variable of this study is
stress according to Meriam Webster Dictionary stress is a force exerted when one body or body
part presses on, pulls, pushes against, or tends to compress or twist another body or body part.
Stress is an unavoidable phenomenon in all aspects of human life.
Stress is an emotional imbalance which may occur due to several reasons such as test,
papers, and projects competitive nature within one’s chosen field, financial worries about and
school and future employment prospects stated by Herold et al. (2018). He like to presents us
why some students experiencing stress and what is the reason of it because students will not
be stressed for no reason, it may be because of lacking financial or future employment
prospects, he also stated that there are many reasons why a person suffers in life.
Feng et al. (2000) also defined stressor are anything that challenges an individuals
adaptability or stimulates an individual body or mentality. According to them stress can be
caused by various factors like environment, psychological, biological, and social. It could be
negative or positive for an individual, depending on the intensity of stress. From the above
discussion, one can view stress as a response a stimulus and a transaction.
Students are experiencing high level of stress in many areas of their life. The impact of
stress on students can be looked at from various angles. According to Centre et al.(2010) stress
affects students academically, socially, physically, and emotionally.
This study show us that there are four impact of stress to the students. First will be
“Academically”, academic stress is the major cause of stress among adolescents and may result
in low self–esteem Nikitha et al. (2016), self–esteem it is how we value and perceive ourselves.
It is based on our opinion and beliefs about ourselves, which can feel difficult to change. We
might also think of self this self-confidence. Your self–esteem can affect whether you like and
value yourself as a person.
The second will be “Socially”, students are social beings by nature, as they have an
essential need and wish to uphold helpful social relations. Social relationships can offer
nurturance, foster feeling of social inclusion, and lead to reproductive success. Anything that
disrupts or threatens to disrupt their relationships with other can result in social stress stated
by Chatterjee et al.(2018) social life it is how we communicate with others and how they treat
us it can also lead us to make adjustments.
 Third impact will be “Physically” when individuals are stressed out, they may experience
cold hands and feet, butterflies in the stomach and sometimes – increased heart rate.
According to Samuhanad et al.(2015) stress can also lead to change in peoples behavior such as
nail biting, heavy breathing, teeth clenching, and hand wringing. He defined as what are the
possible symptoms that can students experience when they are stressed physically, there is a
possibility that it will also have symptoms of anxiety.
The last one will be “Emotionally” stress can causes of irritability and bad temper in
students. Students who are stressed easily get annoyed with little things. Stress in its own way
kills the tolerance of students making them vulnerable to temper issue Rawat et al.(2019). If
students are stressed emotionally the thoughts in their head will not stop until they commit
suicide. Psychiatrists have expressed concern at the emergence of education as a serious source
of stress for school going children Signh et al. (2015) the leading to an incidence of suicide
deaths.
It’s nothing new for students to suffer because they understand that all difficulties have a
purpose, but they are afraid because this test might not be theirs. Every student has a new they
must pass in life to prepare for the future. Handle shifting circumstances and difficulties that
will arise, in particular.
Reddy et al. (2018) in their study concludes that stream wise difference in stress does exist
in students. It is important to the student to deal the stress because in that way they will know
to cope their stress everyday. This study shows us that there are different stress stream to the
students that need to be aware on time.
Dimitrov et al.(2017) in his study claimed that stress can be addressed by ensuring that the
students give utmost importance to their welfare. Food, exercise, work, recreation, are some to
focus on. He also stated that Education is one of the means to reduce these kinds of hurdles,
students in many countries are not even getting basic education, literacy and numeric skills.
Academic stress is a mental distress with respect to some anticipated frustration
associated with academic failure or even unawareness to the possibility of such failure.
Students have to face many academic burden/load, for example school activities, overload
homework, school examination, answering questions in the class, showing progress in school
subjects, understanding what the teacher is teaching, competing with other classmates,
fulfilling teacher and families expectation.
If a person is under stress they may experience any stress signals like Anxiety, Irritability,
Fear of failure.
The first signals will be the “Anxiety dis order” (separation anxiety dis order, selective
mutism specific phobias, social anxiety dis order, panic dis order, agoraphobia, and generalized
anxiety dis order ) are common disabling conditions that mostly begin during childhood,
adulthood Prof Michelle et al. (2017). She differ from developmentally normative or stress –
induced transient anxiety by being marked (ie out of proportion to the actual threat present )
and persistent, and by impairing daily functioning. past experience that give them a trauma can
also one of the reasons why they feel anxious because they can’t concentrate properly on their
work or activities like students because of what happened to them in the past because they
think nothing will change, when a person has anxiety, there are symptoms on it like lack of
focusing, shaking hands, fatigue, irritable over small things. but anxiety has a good effect to the
person who have it because it gives them a signals and alert from everything and they will be
more able to do the things they want because of the fear, failure, it also helps to the students
because the more craving they want in the future.
Last one will be “fear of failure” this study have shown that the learners with high
regulation tend to hinder their needs, have inner interest in doing their own assignments, and
make some effort to complete their assignments. because of this they’ve been experience
difficulty especially when there are many activities given by their teachers may be this will be
the reasons that can trigger them and it will end to fear especially when the deadline is near,
almost all students have no other dreams than to finish school but before they can achieve it
they will go through a lot of trials so others are afraid that they might not be able to achieve
anything in the future so mostly when they are having a hard time studying all of emotions are
there. especially if they want to achieve something in the future they will be more afraid that
they might not be able to achieve it. Martin et al., (2001) in essence they lack resilience. Often
in response to this. This failure, these students may even be actively sabotage their chances of
success (e.g procrastinate, leave tasks until the last minute, or expend little effort ) so that they
have an excuse if they do not so well. This excuse serves a protective function in that they can
blame their poor performance on their procrastination, for example, rather than a possible lack
of ability Covington et al.,(1992).

Academic performance
Academic performance is considered important for several reasons, both from an
individual and societal perspective. In order to achieve academic achievements they almost
forgot their self.
The students also faces a lot of stress due to imbalance of academic, social
performance and time management for extra-curricular activities from education. In this
generation the student life is affected because of 2 years crisis that happened before so when
they go back to class they have forgotten a lot and this is the one things that gives them stress
and affect their academic performance. The dependent variable of this study is “ Academic
performance”, is the outcome of student's effort examination. Student's academic performance
is determined by a number of factors Eze et al.(2016).Academic performance is measured by
average marks of the previous semesters and the total average mark.
For middle school students, higher amounts of school transition stress predicted lower
grades Goldstien et al. (2015) stated that if a student is always transferred this can be one of
the reasons why their grades are lower and can lead them into poor academic achievement.
Moyano N, Perez-Yus (2021) emphasizes that if a student is suffering from depression it
can become ruthless, ultimately affecting their educational performances and making the
moody. This study had the goal to examine factors that are associated with burnout and how it
can reduce the academic performance of the students.
According to Santana CCA (2017) Academic performance is critical for Academic succes
which make students more competitive in the job market and strongly predicts their social and
occupational success in the future. The aim of this study was systematically review the scientific
evidence on the association between obesity and academic performance in school children. The
students are also face social, emotional and physical, and family problems which may affect
their learning ability and academic performance Nies et al (1996). The purpose of this study
was to under taken and identify the sources of stress among students of high school and low
academic performance.

Level of stress & Academic performance

This study used descriptive – correlational approach to examine the level of stress and
their Academic performance. According to bello & Gummarao (2016) academic performance is
affected by several factors, whether internal or external. External stressor are sources of stress
that we aware of around us, these can include traumas, life experience or simply daily hassles.
Internal stressors are the sources of stress that are inside of us and are often the most
common sources of stress. This study was to determine dentistry students level of stress and
their relationship to academic.
Another study conducted to by Kotter et al., (2017) he mentioned that increased stress
leads to decreasing performance, increasing stress. With this stress is revealed to have a
significant relationship with academic performance. He also discuss how can stress and poor
academic can become part of vicious circle. In order to counteract this circularity, it seems
important to better understand the relationship between stress and academic performance to
the students.
A study also conducted to Crego et al. (2016) he states that academic stress negatively
affects students performance. In their study aimed to analyze how other variables such as
coping strategies and exam related self – efficacy could be related to academic performance.
 In another study entitled “Stress and Academic performance” N & Shasti (2016)
identified stress sources among high and low academic performance students. The finding of
the study revealed the majority of the students perceived education was stressful. She also
discuss the high and low academic performing students and pure and applied science students
differed significantly from stress sources. The study's implication and suggestion were
discussed, and enrichment program on stress management was employee.
This studies considered stress and motivation as factors that affect Academic
performance of students. The first factor will be stress According to Noson & Shastri, (2016)
student are mostly affected by academic stress, they are subjected to different kinds of
stressor, such as the pressure of academic performance fereidooni-moghadam et al., (2017).
Those factor was the main sources that can affect the performance of the students.
On the other hand the study carried with the students from Rufo Delacruz Integrated
School, our study would like to know if the senior high school students in Rufo Delacruz
Integrated School is experiencing stress and what are the reason of it and how it affects
their academic performance. And we would like to give them ta questionnaire that
related to our topic.