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Factors that affect the Mental Health of TBA High School Students

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An Undergraduate Research Paper

Presented to the Faculty

of Trinity Baptist Academy

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In partial fulfillment

of the Requirements

in S.Y. 2021-2022

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Travis Ulrich P. Agpasa

Maurice Stefi M. Gervasio

John Benedict M. Galicia

John Renzo F. Balderrama

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April 2023
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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, the statement of the problems, its

significance as well as its scope and delimitation.

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how

we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make

choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence

through adulthood.

It’s important to remember that a person’s mental health can change over time,

depending on many factors. When the demands placed on a person exceed their resources

and coping abilities, their mental health could be impacted.

Research shows that high levels of mental health are associated with increased

learning, creativity and productivity, more pro-social behaviour and positive social relationships,

and with improved physical health and life expectancy. In contrast, mental health conditions can

cause distress, impact on day-to-day functioning and relationships, and are associated with

poor physical health and premature death from suicide.

But it’s important to remember that mental health is complex. The fact that someone is

not experiencing a mental health condition doesn’t necessarily mean their mental health is

flourishing. Likewise, it’s possible to be diagnosed with a mental health condition while feeling

well in many aspects of life.

Ultimately, mental health is about being cognitively, emotionally and socially healthy –

the way we think, feel and develop relationships - and not merely the absence of a mental

health condition.
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Background of the Study

In the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic, schools have confronted unprecedented

challenges as they moved to quickly shift classes to an online format, provide equitable access

for all students, support teachers’ and students’ educational needs, and make plans amidst

great uncertainty. The pandemic itself has caused much worry, stress, and grief.

For children and adolescents with mental health needs, such closures mean a lack of

access to the resources they usually have through schools. These stressors can cause mental

health challenges for anyone and can cause acute symptoms to appear for people who may

experience preexisting mental health challenges.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to find out the factors that affect the mental health of TBA High School

students by answering the following questions:

1. What is the state of their mental health in terms of:

1.1. Daily Routine

1.2. Behavior

1.3. Social Interaction

2. What are the factors that affect their mental health?

3. How did COVID-19 affect their mental health?

4. How can the respondents better their mental health?

Significance of the Study

Even though the COVID-19 lockdowns have pretty much ended, the effects in the

mental health of high school students are still around, for better or for worse. And with the post-

pandemic only beginning, students will be adjusting to a newer normal, back to where it was

before the pandemic.

This study aims to make readers understand the factors that usually affect the mental

health of high schoolers, and to know about the effects COVID-19 Pandemic had on the mental

health. This research will benefit the significant others, particularly:

High School Students. The respondents of this research will primarily benefit from this

as they might find ways to better their mental health.

Teachers. This study also helps teachers as it also guides them to better help their

students about their situations, particularly their studies.

Parents. They will also benefit from this research as they can better help with their

child’s situation.

Scope and Delimitation

The scope of this research is to determine the factors that affect the various mental

health of TBA high school students. This study will be conducted this year 2023. We will

conduct this study by means of survey.

However, this study will only be limited to high school students in TBA.
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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter discussed the review of the related literature and studies that share the

same research topic as the researchers’ study.

Getting by with a Little Help from Friends

Emotions shape how students interact with their surroundings, and how they cope with

emotional responses to academic stress or anxiety can be influenced by their identities, prior

experience, and the learning environment (Gross, 2015). Instructors also play a role in this

process by helping to guide student emotion regulation. An instructor’s engagement or influence

on the learning environment provides opportunities for students to learn with and about

research. This can be informed by knowledge of factors that influence how students cope with

their emotional responses, which is needed for teachers to support student persistence in the

face of research failures. Knowledge of coping could help an instructor to re-engage the most

challenging or difficult students who experience negative emotions such as anxiety, uncertainty,

confusion, feeling daunted, doubtful, frustrated, nervous, overwhelmed, stressed out, or worried

when confronting failed research. Students’ peer interactions, genders, and perceptions of an

achievement-related failure experience are factors that an instructor might consider before

attempting to influence their beliefs (Altermatt and Broady, 2009).

Furthermore, student autonomy in the academic setting could be an important factor to

monitor based on a theoretical model (Henry et al., 2019). This model proposes that, for STEM

undergraduates’ coping behaviors in academic contexts, controllable attributions would be

associated with adaptive coping strategies, whereas uncontrollable attributions and more

negative fear of failure would be associated with challenge avoidance and maladaptive coping.

Because little is known about how factors and patterns affecting the importance and impact of

failed research experiences on a student’s academic trajectory, we examine here individual

students’ responses and learning outcomes within the framework of their unique characteristics

and personal contexts as a way to provide insight into student experiences and potential

instructional approaches to guiding student coping with failure.

Beneficial and negative factors for the development of students’ well-being in

educational context

Students’ school-related well-being (SWB) is of vital importance. Nevertheless, it is

unclear how SWB develops in late adolescence, especially among students in high-achieving

environments and which factors are associated with it. Based on a longitudinal dataset (T1:

Grade 11, T2: Grade 12), we analyzed how SWB (school satisfaction, academic self-concept,

stress experience, exam anxiety, peer satisfaction) develops and whether psychological needs

(autonomy, competence, relatedness) and achievement pressure from teachers and parents

were related to the development. 1,286 students from high-achieving high schools (46.7%

female, MageT1 = 16.40) answered sociodemographic questions and questions about key

variables. From T1 to T2, particularly students’ stress experience and peer satisfaction declined.

Need fulfilment and perceived achievement pressure was related to changes.

Students’ subjective well-being (SWB) is an important educational goal in addition to

acquiring academic competencies (e.g., OECD, 2017; van Petegem et al., 2007). Students’

positive school-related well-being, covering cognitions and emotions about school, is important
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due to its potential links to higher general life satisfaction and improved learning abilities (e.g.,

Seligman et al., 2009). However, despite its significance, not much is known about the temporal

development of various aspects of SWB in the school context, especially during adolescence

and for students in high-achieving environments. Moreover, existing results regarding the

strength and direction of this development are heterogeneous. For example, some studies

revealed that aspects of SWB decrease over the course of students’ school years (Burke &

Minton, 2019; Casas & González-Carrasco, 2019; Scherrer & Preckel, 2019), while other

studies found a positive trajectory or stability (e.g., Steinmayr et al., 2019).

Academic stress, coping, emotion regulation, affect and psychosomatic symptoms in

higher education

Significant gender differences were found in perceived stress and psychosomatic

symptoms (both higher in women), and in coping (emotional vs. humour support strategies

higher for women and men, respectively). Process analysis showed that emotion dysregulation

partially mediated the association between perceived stress and affect and psychosomatic

symptoms. Only positive reframing partially mediated the association between perceived stress

and positive affect. Emotion dysregulation seems to play an important role in the development

of negative affect and psychosomatic symptoms in higher education students. This could

encourage institutions to promote developmental programs targeting emotion regulation to

support students in the transition to higher education.

The Role of Positive Psychology Constructs in Predicting Mental Health and Academic

Achievement in Children and Adolescents

Using a sample of 367 middle-school students, the study revealed that crosssectional

and longitudinal patterns of correlations between positive variables were consistent with

expectations for the most part and suggested that hope, life satisfaction and self-worth have

meaningful relations with mental health and academic achievement. In addition, no significant

changes were found between the variables in study across the administrations and throughout

the two cohorts, and all the variables in study demonstrate moderate to high stability across a 1-

and 2-year time frame. Hope predicts students’ academic achievement, and life satisfaction was

the strongest predictor of mental health, over 2-years.

A multi-method exploratory study of stress, coping, and substance use among high

school youth in private schools

Adolescents typically face a wide range of normative chronic stressors, including

academic and social demands, as well as non-normative major life events, such as parental

divorce or the death of loved ones. Although much of the empirical literature on stress has

focused on youth’s experiences of major life events, in fact, normative chronic stressors occur

with more frequency and are more strongly related to maladaptive behaviors and mental health

problems in young people than acute major life events (Kessler, 1997; Carter et al., 2006). Yet

in the research literature thus far, chronic stress has been under-studied among adolescents in

comparison to the literature on acute life events.

For high school aged youth, academic, athletic, social, and personal challenges are

considered domains of “good stress” (Selye, 1974), and optimal learning environments are

designed to promote positive youth development in these arenas (Compas et al., 1993). Yet

there is growing awareness that many subgroups of youth experience levels of chronic stress
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that are so great that youths’ abilities to succeed academically are actually undermined, mental

health functioning is compromised, and rates of risk behavior escalate (Hardy, 2003; Suldo et

al., 2008; Conner et al., 2009). Further, this chronic stress in high school appears to persist into

the college years, and may contribute to academic disengagement and mental health problems

among emerging adults (National Ctr on Addiction, and Substance Abuse at Columbia

University, 2003).

Affluent youth attending highly competitive private high schools (also called independent

schools) are one such subgroup at particular risk for high rates of chronic stress and its adverse

sequelae (Luthar, 2003; Porter, 2007; Gall and Stixrd, 2008). Private schools educate a small,

predominantly well-off proportion of the nation’s students, offering a high-quality educational

experience characterized by academic rigor, high standards, small class sizes, high-caliber

teachers, and a wide variety of advanced courses and extracurricular activities. A large body of

work has documented lower levels of certain types of stress among affluent youth when

compared to youth lower on the socioeconomic gradient (Finkelstein et al., 2007; Landis et al.,

2007). Yet recent reports in the research literature (Luthar and Becker, 2002; Pope and Simon,

2005) and in the popular press (Boccella, 2007; Rimer, 2007; Dwyer, 2014) have begun to

chronicle high levels of chronic stress among predominantly affluent youth attending highly

competitive high schools. Despite this emerging literature, however, the empirical study of

stress among affluent, high-achieving youth has received limited attention to date. The present

study addresses this gap in the field of adolescent development by focusing on affluent youth in

private high school settings.

Path analysis of relationship among personality, perceived stress, coping, social

support, and psychological outcomes

Stress as an inevitable life experience, develops when an individual fails to cope with the

external physiological and cognitive distress in daily life. Perceived stress is defined as an

individual understands the amount of stress he or she is exposed to in a period of time. It

incorporates the feeling of uncertainty and instability in life, and depends upon the confidence in

one’s ability in dealing with difficulties. Personality is a significant factor in stressful events and

is considered the basis for not having the required resources to cope with an unexpected

situation. It can influence the perception of stress upon the exposure to the stressful event or in

reaction to it. As a result, maladaptive personality traits are related to greater distress, while

more positive and sociable personalities experience more favorable psychological well-being.

Studies have suggested an interaction between personality traits that are independently related

to depression and anxiety. Furthermore, different personal and social factors can also influence

the reaction to the stressful situations as well as the level of stress. Two types of personal

resources that affect adaptation and psychological well-being include coping strategies and

social support as the internal and external resources, respectively. The perceived stress has a

considerable impact on the coping process which in turn plays an important role in adaptation to

stressful life events. Coping is an ongoing process that changes in response to variations of the

situation. Coping strategies can be categorized into the active and avoidant. Active coping

manages the problem cognitively by taking action to mitigate the enfeebling effects of stress,

while the avoidant coping regulates the negative emotional state activated by the stressors.

Coping mechanism can take on various roles in the stressor-symptom relationship, the context

that varies by the type of coping. Moreover, personality traits can affect coping in the daily life.

Active coping is a protective factor in the stressor-symptom model. On the contrary the

avoidance coping is considered a maladaptive response to stressful life events. There is a

relationship between psychological distress and different coping strategies. While the problem-

focused coping is negatively related to anxiety, stress and depressive symptoms, the avoidant

coping is shown to be positively associated with these symptoms. Depression, as the outcome
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of a defective stress management, may be related to certain coping strategies. Particular types

of coping strategies are linked to positive psychological outcomes. For instance, cognitive

reinterpretation and social support are associated with lower perceived strain. In general, active

coping results in a more effective adjustment to chronically stressful events than the avoidant.

Social support is another factor that can moderate the effect of stress. The buffering effect of

social support is either by prevention of potential stressful situations to be perceived as the

stressor, or by reducing the intensity of the reaction to these events. Social support is related to

productive psychological responses, and its absence can be a cause of stress. The lack of

social support is associated with psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. On

the other hand, the presence of resources such as family and friends is associated with a

reduction in psychological distress. Little is known about the structural equations through which

the stress influences the psychological health.

Development and Validation of the Questionnaire of Academic Stress in Secondary

Education: Structure, Reliability and Nomological Validity

Academic stress is a widespread phenomenon in the different stages of the educational

system, and it adversely affects students’ personal, emotional, and physical well-being, as well

as their learning and performance levels. Different studies also highlight its relationship with

early school dropout and internalizing and externalizing problems in school contexts. Academic

stress is especially relevant in adolescence because the school environment is one of the most

significant life contexts in this developmental stage and one of the sources of stress most

identified by adolescents. In addition, transitions between educational stages are usually related

to higher levels of stress. They can have a negative influence on students’ academic, personal,

and social adjustment, and their levels of self-esteem and achievement.

In spite of its demonstrated prevalence and relevance in adolescence, various authors

point out serious gaps and problems in the assessment of academic stress in this

developmental stage. Some of the most important shortcomings are (a) dissatisfaction with the

assessment instruments currently available and (b) the low number of studies focused on

secondary education, compared to university level education, and inconsistencies in their

conclusions about the relationships among gender, educational level, and academic stress.

Hypothesis of the Study

Based on the statement of the problem, related literatures and conceptual framework of

the study, the hypothesis was formulated.

H0 1: Academic stress is one of the factors that negatively affect the students’ mental

health.

H0 2: The different personalities of students affect their academic performance.

Definition of Terms

In order to facilitate deep insights and common understanding of information conveyed

in this study, the following terms were defined operationally.

Academic Stress. It is defined as a student's psychological state resulting from

continuous social and self-imposed pressure in a school environment that depletes the student's

psychological reserves.
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Personality. It is a structure gathering interrelated behavioral, cognitive and emotional

patterns that biological and environmental factors influence; these interrelated patterns are

relatively stable over time periods, but they change over the entire lifetime.

Academic Performance. It is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has

attained their short or long-term educational goals.

Emotion Regulation. It is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience

with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit

spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed.

Mental Health. It encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being,

influencing cognition, perception, and behavior.

Coping. It refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions.