Psychological Dimensions of Academic Stress among the Students of Higher Secondary School

In the recent years, academic pressure has risen in higher secondary education which has cast doubts on the effect that such pressure has on the psychological well-being of the students. At this age group, adolescents are likely to encounter performance pressure, cutthroat academic experiences, and career ambiguities, and these reasons can make them experience emotional pain. The objectives of the study were to identify the academic stress levels in higher secondary school pupils and to establish the correlation between academic stress and the main psychological aspects such as anxiety, depressive and self-esteem. The descriptive survey cross-sectional correlational research design was chosen. The sample was 400 higher secondary students who were sampled using stratified random sampling. They were standardized tools (Among them, there was an Academic Stress Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and a Depression Scale (PHQ-9/BDI). Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, Pearson correlation, and regression were used as the methods of data analysis. The results showed that most students had moderate to high academic pressure. There were also important gender differences where female students were reported to experience more stress and psychological distress. There were significant positive relationships between academic stress and anxiety, depression and a negative correlation between academic stress and self-esteem. The regression model showed that academic stress was a significant predictor of psychological outcome as it explained a significant percentage variance in anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. The paper identifies academic stress as one of the key psychological risk factors in teenagers.