An examination of Lecture-Style Stress Management approach in Junior High School Students

The purpose of this study was to develop lecture-style stress management approach and to observe the effect of promoting stress control techniques to third year students in a public junior high school. A total of four classes consisting of 55 males and 74 females were randomly selected in this study. The structure of this lecture-style stress management approach was to explain what stress theories are, and to introduce relaxation techniques for the subjects to practice. Also, the subjects were asked to answer questionnaire both at the beginning and a week after the lecture to assess the effect of this attempt, such as stress response, stress coping behavior, and the knowledge of stress theories that were summarized as follows: reduction of the stress response was not significant. the frequency of stress coping behavior by the subjects increased, and unsuitable stress coping behavior (They took their stresses out on the others) decreased( x 2=1.43, p=0.15). the score on the knowledge of stress theories was significantly increased. In conclusion, the stress response of the participants did not decrease immediately by this lecture-style approach. However, the desirable change of stress coping behavior and the knowledge of stress theories suggest that this lecture-style approach was effective even in one 90 minute session. In future research, this lecture-style stress management approach needs to be more creative and collaborative among researchers and school teachers as well as students within a given environment and time should be devoted to find ways to provide it with necessary support