Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-142).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: David W. Springer. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

Stress is a pervasive phenomenon that occurs in the lives of people of all age groups but is particularly prominent in the lives of adolescents. A limited and manageable degree of stress motivates a person to perform and engenders a zest for living, but excessive stress is harmful, not only to the victim's health, but also to his affective, social and cognitive development. Too much stress in the life of the adolescent may therefore exert a negative influence on his scolastic performance in that it may lead to underachievement, concentration problems, absenteeism, disinterest in class- and homework, and lowered student satisfaction and self-esteem. To prevent these problems teachers should be capable of identifying excessive stress in pupils and of assisting pupils to cope with stress. Although a considerable number of questionnaires aimed at identifying stress in adolescents are available overseas, no such instrument has been developed for specific application under South African conditions. The purpose of this research is therefore to furnish the educator with 'an instrument for identifying stress in adolescents, not as a means of labelling the child, but to obtain a reference point from which assistance can be offered to the victim of stress. The becoming and development of the adolescent, the definition, causes, mediators and consequences of stress, and responses to stress, have been researched by means of an extensive literature study. A model for the identification and handling of stress in pupils attending secondary schools is proposed, and emphasis is placed on the importance of the teacher's role in the prevention and identification of stress and in assisting pupils who are overburdened with stress. The Adolescent Stress Identification Inventory was developed with reference to the literature study and, following a nomothetic study, standardised by means of statistical methods. It appears from the research that the questionnaire has both a high reliability coefficient and construct validity. It can therefore be applied successfully by educationists and psychologists to identify stress in adolescents. It must be emphasised, however, that awareness and identification of stress in adolescents would be meaningless unless identification leads to prevention and assistance. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

No description available.

This study examined the relationship between anxiety, social stress, and gambling behavior among 1,044 high school students from grades 7 to 11. Adolescents completed questionnaires concerning their state, trait, and generalized anxiety, social stress, and gambling behavior. Results reveal that probable pathological gamblers report more state anxiety, trait anxiety, and social stress compared to non-gamblers, gamblers with no/minimal problems, and problem gamblers. Gamblers with the highest levels of state and trait anxiety engaged in more severe gambling behaviors, substance abuse, reported different reasons for gambling, and endorsed more dissociation items compared to gamblers whose anxiety and social stress levels were in the average or low range. Results of this study provide added support for Jacob's General Theory of Addictions.

The purpose of this study was to validate an abbreviated interview schedule for the assessment of adolescent life stress based on the original Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS) by Brown and Harris (1978). The main objective of the abbreviated instruments was to elicit the severe stressors shown to be of etiological significance for predicting psychiatric disorder without requiring two hours to administer. A non-clinical sample of 58 adolescents (mean age = 15.67 years) completed the Childhood Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1982), the Abbreviated Life Event and Difficulty Schedule - Adolescent version (ALEDS-A), and the full-length LEDS-Adolescent Version (LEDS-A). The abbreviated instrument elicited significantly fewer minor stressors, while retaining its ability to solicit the most severe stressors in a 30-minute time period. Results are interpreted with reference to Brown and Harris's (1978) sociological theory of major life stress and depression.

The present research compared a newly developed interview measure of adolescent life stress, the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (Brown & Harris, 1978), to a self-report checklist The Adolescent Perceived Events Scale (Compas, Davis, Forsythe, & Wagner, 1997). Participants consisted of a community-based sample, of 58 adolescents in grades 9--11. The life strew interview and checklist were compared on a number of factors, namely accuracy and comprehensiveness of obtained stressor data and accuracy of stressor dating. Moreover, the relative performance of the two measures in predicting current depressive symptomatology was assessed. Results revealed differences in the stress profiles obtained by the two measures. Respondents reported stressors in a redundant manner on the checklist and reported a number of stressors on the checklist that did not qualify as stressors according to interview criteria. The checklist was found to lack in comprehensiveness, as many stressors elicited during the interview had no counterpart on the checklist. Respondents were unable to precisely date stressors on the self-report checklist. Results indicated that stressor data obtained by the interview was more associated and more, predictive of current levels of depressive symptomatology than stressor data obtained by the checklist. The implications of these results in reference to life stress assessment and research in the area of adolescent life stress and depression is discussed.

Stress is a pervasive phenomenon that occurs in the lives of people of all age groups but is particularly prominent in the lives of adolescents. A limited and manageable degree of stress motivates a person to perform and engenders a zest for living, but excessive stress is harmful, not only to the victim's health, but also to his affective, social and cognitive development. Too much stress in the life of the adolescent may therefore exert a negative influence on his scolastic performance in that it may lead to underachievement, concentration problems, absenteeism, disinterest in class- and homework, and lowered student satisfaction and self-esteem. To prevent these problems teachers should be capable of identifying excessive stress in pupils and of assisting pupils to cope with stress. Although a considerable number of questionnaires aimed at identifying stress in adolescents are available overseas, no such instrument has been developed for specific application under South African conditions. The purpose of this research is therefore to furnish the educator with 'an instrument for identifying stress in adolescents, not as a means of labelling the child, but to obtain a reference point from which assistance can be offered to the victim of stress. The becoming and development of the adolescent, the definition, causes, mediators and consequences of stress, and responses to stress, have been researched by means of an extensive literature study. A model for the identification and handling of stress in pupils attending secondary schools is proposed, and emphasis is placed on the importance of the teacher's role in the prevention and identification of stress and in assisting pupils who are overburdened with stress. The Adolescent Stress Identification Inventory was developed with reference to the literature study and, following a nomothetic study, standardised by means of statistical methods. It appears from the research that the questionnaire has both a high reliability coefficient and construct validity. It can therefore be applied successfully by educationists and psychologists to identify stress in adolescents. It must be emphasised, however, that awareness and identification of stress in adolescents would be meaningless unless identification leads to prevention and assistance. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

D.Ed. / Statistics in the media have given a grim picture about unemployment in South Africa. The question was asked about the influence of the father's unemployment on adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 years, who is part of the same family system as the father. Taking into account the important role the family has to fulfil in the development of the adolescent, the researcher wondered to what extent the adolescent's way to adulthood was influenced by the fact that the father and the family was not available to fulfil the role of supporter and caregiver. The father had to deal with his own emotions and feelings and was not available for the adolescent. How did it influence his/her development? The sample criteria were formulated to include adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 years whose fathers lost their jobs and who were unemployed at present (having lost their jobs not longer than three months ago). The criteria also included adolescents who were adversely affected by the existential crisis in the form of the father's unemployment. Phenomenological interviews were conducted to determine the adolescents' experience of the father's unemployment. The results, in short, indicated that three emotions were experienced namely fear, insecurity and anger. It was evident that the adolescents did not apply constructive skills to handle the crisis but merely used strategies to survive every day. These strategies lead to the deterioration of relationships with the self and significant others. Their hopes and perception of the future were also negatively influenced. This lead to the adolescents not experiencing a form of well-being and survival was the only prerogative. The researcher decided to look at the construction of a model to support these adolescents by helping them gain personal insight so that in the end, well-being will be experienced. The development of the model proceeded in four stages. During Stage one, concepts were identified, defined and classified after the completion of the fieldwork. The central concept was defined as ''facilitating interaction': and associated concepts were the educational psychologist, the adolescent, the existential crisis, interpersonal processes to apply to the crisis and the reaching of certain goals. Guba 's model was applied to ensure trustworthiness in the qualitative methodology. This refers to the credibility, transferability, reliability and verification of the research. The relationship between concepts was drawn in Step one, the description of the model followed in Step three and the guidelines in operationalising the model followed in Step four. In this research, Steps three and four were integrated and not discussed separately. The model is aimed at supporting the adolescents by applying facilitative interaction to gain personal insight and thus applying more constructive skills to the handling of psychological processes, which will lead to the well-being of the adolescent where problemsolving skills are an integral part of the process. This is indicative of the improvement in the relationship with the self and significant others. The researcher hopes that these skills will become a /ifeski/1 to be applied to other situations. The main theme of the model is:" Assistance to adolescents whose fathers lost their jobs: an educational psychological model".