College Students’ Stress Coping Strategies

Physical activity is a great coping mechanism for a student stress during college, along with other positive health benefits. However, it may not be the only method to manage stress as a college student, according to my research. Stress goes hand in hand with college so the objective of my literature research was to find a correlation between physical activity and stress. The research demonstrated that along with exercise, family and friend support were also good methods to cope with stress. One reason students are stressed in college is due to concern with their academic performance, however there have not been adequate studies done on a correlation between academic performance and physical activity among college students. For my capstone project I plan to do original research. I would plan to create a questionnaire and administer it using survey monkey. I will ask students about the extent of stress related to academic performance, what students prefer as their method to cope with stress as well whether those methods have been effective in improving their academic performance. This could be measured by the semester gpa/grades. With this information I hope to be able to suggest recommendations to cope with stress to help college students to succeed academically while having an overall positive college experience