Stress Among Senior High Student Athletes: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

In today’s society students are exposed to stress. Stress is a process in which when an organism’s welfare is threatened or challenged by environmental events, prompting the organism to respond to that threat (Gatchel, 1996). Student Athletes experience different stressors depending on their athletic status such as time demands, injuries and conflict with their coaches or teammates (Humphrey, Yow, & Bowden, 2000; Papanikolaou et al., 2003). The main focus of the research is the experiences of Senior High Athlete students and how it affected their academic performances. This study is only limited to Senior High Athlete students in Colegio de San Juan de Letran The researchers used phenomenological method wherein they had an in-depth interview with Senior High Student Athletes about their experiences of stress and how it affected them. The researchers found out that some of the Senior High School Students Athletes in Colegio de San Juan de Letran had a good effect and bad effect of stress in their academic performance.

INTRODUCTION

School is a place where students have many duties and responsibilities this expose them to stress. In today’s society, a highly competitive world, students experience different stressors that affect their academic performances. According to Gatchel (1996) stress is a process in which when an organism’s welfare is threatened or challenged by environmental events, prompting an organism responds to that threat. Stress is usually connected with two concurrent events which are the stressors, and the physically and emotionally feedback such as anxiety, fear, muscle tension, heart rate, and so on. Few years ago, a research was conducted (Akpalu, Ayisi, Bekoe & Sumuah, 2015) to evaluate the possible effects of stress on the academic performance among Senior High School students in Ghana which revealed that stress is connected with a low performance in class and 85% of the students said that stress influence their academic performance.

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Based on the recent evidences, athletes may experience a huge number of stress due to both demands of athletics and academics given to them during their freshman year (Pritchard, 2005). Athletes experience different stressors depending on their athletic status such as time demands, injuries and conflict with their coaches or teammates (Humphrey, Yow, & Bowden, 2000; Papanikolaou et al., 2003). In addition to that, according to Kozlowski (2013) student athletes face a lot of pressure due to the participation of sports, thus the research indicates that 10-15% of athletes have a high chance of developing mental health illness due to increased stress. The combination of multiple stressors whether it is academics or athletics creates a huge problem and a negative effect on their health.

In the Philippines, stress has been one of the most researched topics among Filipino researchers. Over 200 respondents, 23% said that their jobs and studies are the main reason of stress in their lives (Ansis, 2017). Stress related to studies is caused by the lack of time management, tons of academic works and the student’s ability to multitask. In addition to that students are most likely to experience personal problems like eating disorders and financial accounts. This kind of problem or stressors that if it is not addressed properly or if the student lacks coping skill, it might lead to worst case scenarios like depression, suicide and death (Ansis, 2017). According to the study of Mazo (2015) that the common effects of stress among 51 respondents of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology students in Leyte Normal University, Tacloban City with 25 male and 26 female students are sleepless nights and moody feelings. It implies that the respondents experience stress and that it affects their sleeping pattern and behaviors which results in low performance in class.

According to the study of Haider & Mehfooz (2017) stress can positively and negatively influence the academic performance and the academic achievement of a student. In relation to that, stress has always been a problem that affects the life of a person but athletes tend to experience and suffer more because they have to balance their studies, practices, games, family pressures and social life (Fullerton, 2002). It implies that the effects of stress among athlete students on their academic performance are more likely to be frequently experienced due to the fact that they have more responsibilities than non-athlete students.

In today’s society, there are a lot of competitions which means this research topic is timely and relevant due to the fact that most people especially students, who’s already in the stage of building their career path, thrive for perfection that can lead to stress.

MATERIAL AND METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The research will determine the essence of stress in the academic performance of senior high student athletes. The researchers will be using phenomenological method that will use in-depth interviews to be able to know and analyse the experiences of student athletes when they are stressed and how it affects their academic performance.

Sampling Technique

In this research, the group will be using criterion sampling technique. The researchers will choose respondents who are suited for the specific criteria which are a) Male or female b) 16-19 years old c) Enrolled in Colegio de San Juan de Letran d) Student athlete and e) Basketball players. Following the measures will ensure that the researchers will be able to gather the needed data based on the experience of student athletes.

Research Instruments

The instrument that the researchers will be using is an interview questionnaire. This will contain questions regarding the level of stress to student athletes in their academic performance. This questionnaire will be using phenomenology wherein the students will be able to tell their experiences about stress and how they overcome it. An audio recorder will be used to transcribe the data.

Data Collection and Procedure

The researchers will be doing an individual interview for all the respondents regarding the essence of stress in their academic performance. This will be based on their personal experiences as student athlete. All the collected data will be stored in a flash drive where only the researchers have the access on the acquired information. After using the data it will be immediately burned if not needed.

Data Analysis

After collecting the results from the respondents then the group will now analyse through warm and cool analysis of stress to senior high athlete students in Colegio de San Juan de Letran.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results show that the answers of the respondents are mainly similar to each other’s answers. Some of their similarities are having a good and bad habit of time management, some know their priorities which are their studies. And last but not the least, their relationship to the people that surrounds them or to the people close to their hearts. There are also differences from the respondent’s answers, most likely- it is because they have different ways on how to handle their time management. The results show that there are more good effects rather than the bad effects. Most of the respondent’s answers are positive effects of stress like – in terms of their relationship with their coaches, families, and team mates are still good, other than that they know what their main priority which is their academic studies. There are more of negative effects of stress to them like- there are some who responds that they have an awkwardness relationship with their coach because, his coach is also busy that caused the coach not to help him. Other than that some of the respondents also said that they have a hard time managing and balancing their academics and athletics demands.

Time Management

Some respondents found it hard to manage both athletics and academics. Reasons are there is not enough time and there is no time management. But aside from that there are respondents who said that they performed well in class and it’s not complicated to manage time. The athletes said that they do all the things need to be done and they have time for academic and they have time for athletics although it’s hard for them to balance both. This indicates that some athletes doesn’t do well when it comes to time management that’s why some of them experience that their athletic demands keeps piling up with their academic demands.

Priorities

All of the respondents’ priorities are academics. One of the respondents said that he asks his coach if he could skip his training just to comply his missed works. The other respondent said that she set priorities and she was told by her coach that she should prioritize her academics first. Although the athletic demands keep piling up with the academic demands, the respondents still prioritize academics and they can perform well in class. This indicates that even though the respondents found it hard to balance both academics and athletics, they still prioritize their academics.

Relationship

All of the respondents said that they have good relationship with their coach, teachers and classmates. One respondent said that she’s still close with her classmates. The other said that she and her team mates are like a family. This indicates that the respondents’ relationship with their coach, teachers and team mates can help them cope with stress. Having good relationship with the people surrounds them indicates that they are able to get advices from those people and this will help lessen their stress.

CONCLUSIONS

The researchers concluded that there are many effects of stress on the Senior High School student athletes and these are categorized by three themes which are Time Management, Priorities and Relationship. The essence of stress to the senior high school student athletes is that they are handling different experiences when it comes to these three themes. Some of them have positive effects while the others have negative one. The researchers also discovered that being student athlete is more stressful than being an ordinary student because they need to manage their time between their academic studies and being an athlete. The major conflict that athletes struggle with is how to do both or how to excel both in their academic demands and at the same time with their sport.

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