Perceived Stress in Adolescents Across Gender

Stress may be defined as mental, emotional and psychological strain to cope with real or imagined factors. In the Indian context, stress is commonly seen in adolescents specifically during the time of the 10th standard board examinations. These examinations are used as a starting point for admissions into desirable institutes or courses for the more important 12th standard examinations. Thus, the researcher wished to measure the differences in the levels of perceived stress in male and female students studying in 10th grade. The researcher’s hypothesis is that there are no significant differences in the levels of stress between the two genders. The sample size being considered is a total of 60 with equal division of 30 subjects for each gender. The tool being used for this study is the Perceived Stress Scale developed by Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein (1983) and is a well-established self-report measure based on the psychological conceptualization of stress. The result of the study will be discussed with the help of descriptive and inferential statistics.