Feeling of Course Understanding and Stress Responses of Junior High School Students

The purpose of this study was to clarify the influence of students' cognition about schoolwork upon school stress in junior high school. On the basis of the results of our previous study (Matsuda & Tamase, 2002) it was predicted that there would be some meaningful relationship between the students' subjective feeling of course understanding and their stress responses. Fifty male and sixty-five female students were used as raters and they rated school stressors, stress responses in school, and their feeling of course understanding in terms of academic achievement. The academic grade by teachers' evaluation was also used as objective data. The data collected were analyzed using multiple regression analyses, applying stress responses as a dependent variable and academic stressors, subjective feeling of course understanding, objective grades, and sex differences as independent variables. The results were in line with our prediction, and the importance of teaching skills by teachers was discussed