Living and learning in a hectic world: Students' perceptions of stress

Conclusion

Two of the primary aims of education about stress are to help studentslearn about stress, as well as helping them tocope with stress in their lives.

The majority of students in this study saw stress as a demanding environmental condition (i.e. a stressor), less frequently as the individual's reaction to it, and even less frequently as a complex and on-going process of interaction between the individual and his or her environment. Thus the individual and the interactionist aspects of stress need to be address and both aspects of stress, positive and negative should be included. This study highlights not only the areas in which students' understanding of stress can be broadened, but also it provides a rich source of students' experimental knowledge on which new learning can be based.

Stress management resources such as self-help literature, television programs, and community-based courses have been available to the adult population for several years. More recently stress management courses are being offered to college students in the USA (Allen, 1981). Researchers in the USA are now beginning to look at stress management units in high school health education programs (Richardson et al, 1983), but such courses are largely absent from Australian schools.

Given that stress is an inescapable part of modern life with considerable implications for individual and social health and well-being, knowledge about stress-its causes, effects, and means of management-should be available to all people.