RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

PROPOSAL OF
STRESS: CAUSES AND EFFECT

SUPERVISOR: MR. KALIRASAN

NAME: CHANG HUI MEI
CLASS: 6BG (2010)
SCHOOL: SMK TINGGI KAJANG
LITERATURE REVIEW
Stress is not something strange to our daily life nowadays and it has becomes one part in our
life. Everybody may feel stress when they are facing bad or emergency situation. Generally,
word of stress has been used in social science research since a well known medical expert,
Selye pioneered the research for psychological stress in 1950’s. In addition, Cox & Brockley
(1984) stated that stress is a perception phenomenon which exists from a comparison between
the command given and ability of a person to execute his/her task successfully. Unbalanced
situation in this mechanism will lead into stress experience and ultimately into stress happens.

Meanwhile, in the study conducted by Tajularipin Sulaiman, Aminuddin Hassan, Vizata

[Link], Saifuddin Kumar Abdullah from Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra
Malaysia was to determine the relationships between stress level and academic achievement
among students in urban and rural secondary schools in of the district in Malaysia. A study of
stress, especially an approach towards measuring level of stress among adolescents is quite
new in Malaysia. So, an attempt to study this condition, starting with normal adolescents, is
the purpose of this study. This study had three main objectives. The first objective was to find
the total percentage of students who suffered high stress, medium stress and low stress. The
second objective was to compare the stress level between gender and the third objective was
to compare the stress level between each student from urban and rural area. This study used
the survey method by administering Students-life Stress Inventory (SSI) questionnaires.
Using the t-test, the findings of the study also indicated that there are significant differences
in level of stress for gender and between students in rural and urban secondary school. A
general conclusion is that there are many factors influences students’ stress such as parenting
style, parents education background, environment of the students which is can give impact in
students life. The research pattern being used were descriptive survey research comparing
chosen urban and rural school. The collected data will be analysed using a program called
Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS ver.12.0 For Windows). The data analysis
includes descriptive analysis such as frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation.
The difference between variable is decided using t-test. Tool use for the research is
questionnaire set with two parts. Part A is about self information such as gender, age and
school location. Part B measures stress level in leading a student life using Student-life Stress
Inventory modulated Gadzella (1991). The survey focused on five categories of source of
stress which are frustration, conflict, stressor, change and self exposure and four parts
regarding reaction towards stress from psychological, emotional, behaviour and cognitive
measurement (Gadzella and Baloglu, 2001). In this research, students’ perception towards
their stress are levelled as high, moderate and low based on the answer given in every item in
the SSI questionnaire.

Thus, a number of 155 secondary school students are involved in this research. From the
total, 72 (46.5%) respondents are male and 83 (53.5%) respondents are female. For school
location, it was 63 (40.7%) from urban secondary school and 92 (59.3%) are rural secondary
school students. Based on the decided stress level high, moderate and low, the research found
that 71% students have low stress level, 29% with moderate stress level and none of the
students experience high stress level. This study also proved that the stress level experienced
by the students in rural area was slight lower compared to the students from urban area. In the
ascept of gender, the mean for male students are (Min=1.123) compared to that for female
students (Min=1.345). However, the mean difference is small even though the difference is
significant.
Results of the research show that students experience stress at different level. Generally,
students only experience low and moderate stress level according to the percentage acquired
in the research. While no student experience high level stress. The research findings are
parallel to the findings of a few previous researches as carried out by Chin (2005) and
Gadzella (2006) who found that there is different stress level among college students.
Different stress levels exist among students because the presence of different force of defence
resulted from different genetic inheritance. Genetic inheritance is the characteristics inherited
naturally. From a few research by genetic scientists, it is believed that different organisms
possess different defences towards different type of stress. (Mohd Daud, 1990).

In the second study conducted by Laura P. Womble from University of North Carolina at
Charlotte aimed to detect if there is a correlation between the stress that students perceive that
they are under, and their GPA’s. Given that students may not be under the same amount of
stress every single semester, the survey is designed to be answered as it pertained to them the
previous semester of school, fall 2001. She used the Perceived Stress Scale to evaluate the
amount of stress that students perceive to be under, developed by Cohen and Mermeistein in
1983. The Perceived Stress Scale is a fourteen-item scale that asks the respondents to answer
a series of questions as they pertained to them in the last month before the college re open.
The method of answering the questions is a likert scale format with answers ranging from 0
being an answer of never to 4 being an answer of very often. The scale yields a single score
and a higher score is indicative of greater levels of perceived stress, with items 4, 5, 6, 7, 9,
10, 13, being reversed scored. The Perceived Stress Scale has been shown to be reliable and
to measure only the amount of stress, independent of other constructs like depression. Then,
students were asked to report data about themselves to control for extraneous variables.
Questions were asked such as their genders, ages, races. Students were also asked to answer
questions about their course load, and class standing. Furthermore, the students were asked to
report the classes that they took over the fall 2001 semester and any grades that they received.
There is a list of reasons that could have contributed to their GPA; these reasons were pulled
out from what was reviewed in the literature. The students will be asked to report their top
three reasons, that they received the grades that they earlier reported.

As the result, a correlation was run on the scores from the Perceived Stress Scale and the
student’s GPA. The results showed that the stress the surveyed students were under was not
significantly correlated with the student’s GPA. The qualitative data was “eyeballed” to see
in what order the students ranked their stress factors. Not getting enough sleep ranked
number 1 with 12 students, followed by having problems with roommates, and social
activities tied for number 2 with 8 responses. Lastly, working a part-time job came in at
number 3 with 7 responses, close to the number 2 spot.

From this study, if a student is under a large amount of perceived stress, one would tend to
think that the student’s GPA would suffer. In the review of the literature many studies found
that certain factors could greatly influence a student’s GPA. Health-related factors like,
nutrition, and amounts of sleep were found to have a great influence on students (Trockel et
al, 2000). Other factors like having a full or part-time job have been thought to take away
from a student’s academic performance (Calderon et al, 2001). Social activities such as, being
in a fraternity or sorority, or having problems with boyfriends or girlfriends have shown to
also have a negative effect on academic performance (Hatcher & Prus, 1991). With all
conditions taken into consideration the purpose of this study was to examine the correlation
between students’ amounts of perceived stress in a given semester and their GPA’s. The
present study was unable to show a significant correlation between the two factors. Scores
ranged across the board, from a high score on the perceived stress scale with a high GPA, and
a low score on the perceived stress scale and a high GPA.

In addition, the research of stress, Stressors and coping strategies among secondary school
students in a Malaysian government secondary school: initial findings by Muhamad Saiful
Bahri Yusoff from Medical Education Department of School of Medical Sciences 16150
Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia aimed to obtain initial data on the stress prevalence,
stressors, and coping strategies among secondary school children in Malaysia. Data gained
from this preliminary study provides valuable data for subsequence research in the future.
This research used a cross-sectional study involving 100 secondary school students from a
Malaysian government secondary school. The validated Malay version 12-item General
Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Soal selidik Stressor Sekolah Menengah (SSSM) and Malay
version of Brief COPE were used to identify stress level, stressors, and coping strategies.

The result of this study it was found that the main stressors were related to academic. The top
five coping strategies were religion, positive reinterpretation, active coping, planning, and use
of instrumental support.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
There are several theoretical positions devised for examining and understanding stress and
stress-related disorders. Brantley and Thomason (1995) categorized them into three groups:
response theories, stimulus theories, and interaction (or transaction) theories. Given the
distinction made earlier between stress as a stimulus and as a response, this system serves as
a useful way to present the various theories and associated research. Because chronic stress
responses involve actual physiological changes to body systems and organs, a good bit of
attention has been paid to acute physiological stress responses and how they might possibly
lead to subsequent chronic stress responses (McEwen and Stellar, 1993). Historically, both
Walter Cannon (1929) and Hans Selye (1956) provided the foundation for the current interest
in this physiological process.
The Work of Walter Cannon
Cannon was a physiologist at Harvard University who was the first to use the term
‘homeostasis.’ According to Cannon (1929), the body possesses an internal mechanism to
maintain stable bodily functioning or equilibrium. As the environment presents the organism
with various challenges, the body must respond to each new situation by adjusting various
physiological systems to compensate for the resources being taxed. A classic example of this
type of compensation involves fluid regulation.
Translating his work with physical challenges associated with eating, drinking, and physical
activity into those of a psychological nature, Cannon hypothesized that common homeostatic
mechanisms were involved. Accordingly, if an organism’s response to threat involves
significant sympathetic nervous system arousal so that respiration and heart rate increase
significantly, the body’s compensatory response should involve either reducing sympathetic
nervous system activity or increasing parasympathetic nervous system counter-activity.
If the compensatory response is inadequate, tissue damage can result, placing the organism at
a greater risk for subsequent medical problems associated with the damaged tissue.
In brief, the concept of homeostasis introduced by Cannon has proved to be very valuable in
explaining how acute physiological stress responses to threats of survival lead toward chronic
stress responses.
The Work of Hans Selye
Selye (1956) was the first investigator to use the term ‘stress’ to describe the problems
associated with homeostasis identified by Cannon decades earlier. Although he borrowed the
term from physics, he used it to describe the effects on the organism rather than the
environmental stressors he examined in his empirical work.
According to Selye, the ‘stress’ response of the organism represented a common set of
generalized physiological responses that were experienced by all organisms exposed to a
variety of environmental challenges like temperature change or exposure to noise. From his
perspective, the stress response was nonspecific; that is, the type of stressor experienced did
not affect the pattern of response. In other words, a wide variety of stressors elicited an
identical or general stress response. He termed this nonspecific response the General
Adaptation Syndrome, which consisted of three stages: Alarm Reaction, Resistance, and
Exhaustion.
Selye reasoned that the first stage, Alarm Reaction, involved the classic ‘fight-flight’
response described above. As a result, the body’s physiological system dropped below
optimal functioning. As the body attempted to compensate for the physiological reactions
observed in the Alarm Reaction stage, the organism entered the Resistance stage.
Physiological compensatory systems began working at peak capacity to resist the challenges
the entire system was confronting, and according to Selye, actually raised the body’s
resistance to stress above homeostatic levels.
However, because this response consumed so much energy, a body could not sustain it
forever. Once energy had been depleted, the organism entered the stage of Exhaustion. In this
stage, resistance to environmental stressors broke down and the body became susceptible to
tissue damage and perhaps even death. In Selye’s terminology, the Alarm Reaction Stage was
comparable to the acute stress response described above and the Exhaustion Stage was
comparable to a chronic stress response.
The Work of Bruce McEwen
More recently, the historic works of Cannon and Selye that have attempted to explain how
acute physiological stress responses evolved into chronic stress responses have been revisited
by Bruce McEwen and colleagues (McEwen and Stellar, 1993; McEwen, 1998) at
Rockefeller University. In contrast to the state of physiological equilibrium of homeostasis
essential for survival that Cannon discussed, McEwen used the term ‘allostasis,’ referring to
the body’s ability to adapt to a changing environment in situations that did not challenge
survival.
From his perspective, an organism that maintained a perfectly stable physiological
equilibrium during a stressful encounter (a nonresponse) might be just as problematic as an
organism that exhibited an exaggerated physiological response. Allostasis referred to the
body’s ability to adjust to a ‘new steady state’ in response to the environmental challenge
(McEwen and Stellar, 1993).
McEwen (1998) outlined four distinct types of allostatic overload. In the first type, the
organism is exposed to multiple environmental stressors during a short period of time. the
second form of allostatic overload, repeated stressors elicit responses that fail to habituate. A
third form of allostatic overload involves delayed physiological recovery from a given
environmental stressor. In this case, the frequency or magnitude of the physiological response
may be entirely normal; however, it is the length of time that the response is sustained that
leads to allostatic overload. The final form of allostatic overload involves an inadequate
physiological response. In this case, the organism encounters a stressful circumstance or
environmental change, but the physiological response is either very weak or entirely absent.
Imagine walking through the woods and encountering a black bear, only to find that your
body’s fight-flight response failed to occur and therefore did not provide the necessary
energy and altered blood flow to run away from the threat.
According to McEwen and Stellar (1993), allostatic overload, whatever its source, is the
mechanism through which acute physiological responses result in permanent tissue damage.
Research using animals documents not only changes in peripheral tissues associated with
increased allostatic load, but also altered functioning in the cerebral cortex (McEwen, 1998).
Selye’s (1956) General Adaptation Syndrome described above is a classic representation of a
theoretical perspective that focuses upon stress as a response. In fact, Selye went so far as to
state that the nature of the stimulus was irrelevant to the stress response. To support his view,
he subjected animals to a wide variety of experimental conditions that elicited very similar
physiologic stress responses including temperature change, pain stimulation, and exposure to
infection.
Likewise, although acknowledging the importance of the stress stimulus in their theoretical
models, McEwen and colleagues have also focused on the physiological stress response,
paying less attention to the type or nature of the eliciting stimulus (McEwen and Stellar,
1993; McEwen, 1998).
Although response theories have contributed greatly to our understanding of the
physiological response systems that mediate the relation between environmental stressors and
chronic stress responses, they have typically neglected a detailed exploration of types of
environmental stressors and how they might influence the disease process.
OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

Objectives of this research are:-

1) To identify the level of stress of students based on the survey.
 To determine how far does a student suffered because of stress and the causes of
stress among the secondary student of SMK Tinggi Kajang through survey.

2) To identify the difference of stress levels between sexes among secondary school students.
 Surveys will be conducted by different sexes to determine what are the differences of
stress level and the causes of stress on different sex.

METHODLOGY OF STUDY
The following methods are going to be used in this study:
a. Survey
This method is used to study the factors that cause stress among students in this
school. The tool that is going to use is questionnaires set which consists two parts.
Part A is about self information on the interviewer and part B measures the stress
level of the students. This survey is going to be tested under the same condition- that
is the classroom of the interviewees.

b. Evaluation and Analysis

The research pattern being used is survey research comparing the stress level on
chosen students. The data collected will be analysed based on a scale to identify the
level of stress of the students. The data will be analysed include descriptive analysis
such as percentage, frequency and mean to identify the amount and level of stress
experiences by the student.
 WORK SCHEDUDULE

Date Activity
Jan 2011  Collects data more data from internet and other sources like books
and magazines
Feb 2011  Identify the group of interviewees that are going to carries out the
survey
 Prepares the questionnaires for the survey
Mac 2011  Carries out the survey by students of same age under same
condition- that is in the classroom of the interviewees
April 2011  Analyses and interprets the data collected
May 2011  Prepares power point presentation
June 2011  Finalise the power point presentation
 Presents the research

BRIEF BIBILOGRAPHY

 Tajularipin Sulaiman
Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
 Aminuddin Hassan
Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
 Vizata [Link]
Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
 Saifuddin Kumar Abdullah
Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
 Assoc. Prof. Dr. Azizi Hj. Yahaya
 Nik Diana Hartika binti Nik Husain
Faculty of Education, University Technology Malaysia, Skudai, Johor
 Will G Hopkins PhD
Department of Physiology and School of Physical Education, University of Otago,
Dunedin 9001, New Zealand.
 The Language of Emotional Intelligence by Jeanne Segal, Ph.D