Abstract

Stress and coping with stress have changed over the years and become an indication that is closely intertwined with human life. Young people need to learn and practice coping strategies to get them through their schooling and the stressful time of adolescence. In this descriptive comparative research design, the objective is to know and compare different coping mechanisms of academic achievers and average students specifically students in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) strand. Academic stress is one of the factors that contribute to a person having a mental health problem, therefore knowing how to handle stress is a big help in decreasing problems concerned with mental health and giving importance to students' mental capacity towards school work by identifying the source and effect of the stress by doing one-on-one interviews with the selected STEM-strand students in grade 11 in one section where rank 10 of the whole strand is present combined with average students. Through the oral responses of the selected participants, the researchers will do a comparative analysis of the responses of each student reaching the point of saturation. After conducting the interview and analysis, the researchers found out that a common source of stress is the nature and difficulty of the subject and other factors like lack of time in doing assigned tasks given by teachers. The stress that academic achievers and average students experience does have effects and these are 1.) Time management and proper resting 2.) Dedication to studying harder 3.) Feeling of stressful urgency by the necessity of achieving something. 4.) Health status affects studies and other factors. 5.) Students' anxiety about academic stress affects their physical and mental health. The findings can be a stepping stone to studies that are related to students and mental health problems due to academic stress.