Stress Factors and Coping Strategies among Nigerian University Students

Abstract

Stress is a part of life for not just working class individuals but every student's daily life.  It adds flavour, challenge and opportunity to life. It is not out-of-place to say that without stress, life would be dull and unexciting. However, it is also a well-known fact that stress when pushed too far can seriously affect student's physical and mental well being. The purpose of this paper is to identify part-time students' major sources of stress, examine signs and signals and how they try to cope with stress. One hundred (100) undergraduate part-time students from the department of Business Administration, Secretarial Studies and Education. Part-time undergraduate students from AmbroseAlli University, Ekpoma, Edo state in Nigeria served as the sample for this study.

Data collected with Student Stress Checklist and Occupational Stress Coping Inventory were analyzed using frequency, Wilcoxon, Wald-Wolfowit's Run's Test and Chi-Square test. The results from the study revealed that students' perception of stress did not differ significantly. They also managed stress using similar coping strategies but they experienced the highest stress from academic and social situations.